Queenstown

 I didn’t know I had a problem with heights. Or maybe I am fooling myself. 

It started to creep in when I had to cross a gorge on a rope bridge when I was working on a film in Belize. The first few steps were fine and then I crumpled and went the rest of the waving way on my hands and knees. Since then I have stayed away from the edge of high balconies. Turned down the chance to skydive. Stood at the bottom of ladders. 

I remember now, as I think about it, that I never climbed a tree as a child. I never swung across a river on a rope. It may be that I was always a height coward.

So, I was in Queenstown. The sporting capitol of the South Island of New Zealand.

 There were centers offering zip lining and snow boarding and, oh, I don’t know. All these things that require proper muscles and flinging yourself off heights with less than an umbrella to help you.

None of that for me…. 

Crazy activities available on every street corner

I wandered the town. Oddly filled with young people that I suspect were on an elongated gap year. Working in coffee shops or clothing stores. Not New Zealanders. Travelers, still traveling.

It wasn’t warm. They were wearing shorts. In restaurants they were making a pot of tea last for hours. 

It was too busy for me. Lots of visitors getting togged up in life jackets and whizzing around the lake in speed boats. Or carrying shopping bags from clothing stores that would not make any sense whatsoever when they got home to their home which had a temperate climate and a village pond.

Not the worst view before going to sleep

But I did go up the Gondola. I got into a little car thing on my own and only remembered a few minutes up that I had voluntarily chosen to do something that scared me sideways.

I managed it. I breathed. I sang to myself.  I wandered around at the top and wondered if I could come down or just stay up there forever.

 I came down. Backwards. So I couldn’t see how high I was. 

Honestly. How ridiculous is this story? 

Or is it like the one I always remember about Cleo Laine, the jazz singer, who said that she didn’t like olives but if someone offered her one, she would always try it, just in case she had changed her mind.