Why Paragliding was just okay
I wasn’t nervous about paragliding at all. I was however nervous about the windy shuttle ride up to Coronet Peak. I got just a tiny bit motion sick from the ride but made it up to the highest jump off no problem. My first thoughts when we arrived at our launch point were (1) I wish I brought chapstick and a down jacket because it’s cold, and (2) this is going to suck isn’t it?
Five minutes later, I’m strapped in to a guy named Peter watching my boyfriend jump off with his tandem partner and he looks stoked. His jump was perfectly executed. I was gonna jump right after but it took a couple of tries because I couldn’t exactly run against the wind with a guy 3x my size strapped to my back. So I had to get an assisted pull into the wind until I was airborne. Once we were up, I felt so relaxed. The view was incredible. I was cold and really wishing I had chapstick on but it was manageable. Time flies when you’re high, literally. And 15 minutes later and a couple of roller coaster spiral spins down towards earth, I landed on my feet (yay!) at the base of the mountain.
Ian landed right after me, followed by Mark and Alice, and we all met at the coffee shop where our pilots were trying to sell us the GoPro photos and videos. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I found out that both Mark and Alice puked their morning fill of cherries during their flight, especially since they were the ones that were all gung-ho about paragliding! I couldn’t laugh too hard though because I also got quite motion sick from the downward spiraling, so my shoulders were tense and if I moved too much I could have puked too. But more importantly, I didn’t!
Did I like paragliding? Sure. Would I do it again? Probably not.
I’d definitely recommend this for someone who wants to do something exciting but not too blood rushing. In my opinion, it’s just really overpriced (~$200 NZD per person) and not my favorite experience in Queenstown.