January 1993
the ground zero of youth
Queenstown, New Zealand on the end of lovely lake Wakatipu overlooking the Remarkables (a mountain range) must have one of the best settings of a town in New Zealand and perhaps anywhere. Queenstown when we visited was a mecca for "adrenaline junkies" who came for all its outrageous adventure sports (handled professionally and safely). The city was the end of the line for our "Kiwi Experience" bus trip down the South Island [see: Lake Hawea] and all the passengers were all excited about arriving there. "What we were going to do" upon reaching Queenstown was on everyone's lips.
Brian, MAP (our new German friend), and I found a place to stay in Queenstown and then set off to experience all it had to offer. There Brian and I did tandem parasailing [see: Tandem parasailing], Brian and MAP bungy jumped in the original location, and we all clung desperately to the side of a jetboat that raced up a shallow river in a narrow mountain canyon. Queenstown had everything - if one was young.
I dedicated a lot of life to travel and exploration. This led to me following the "path not normally taken" which has not always been easy. Personal tragedy aside (because all of us have some things thrown on our plates that we could never have expected), choosing a traveling life meant being willing to start over from "scratch" again and again. It was exciting but also draining. I would occasionally return to my home turf and see my friends' lives there who had chosen the safer path and felt pangs of envy over how easy their lives appeared and how fulfilling as well. However, when they looked at my life, their faces simultaneously brightened and saddened - happy to hear my tales of adventure and sadly envious that they knew they could never follow in my path.
I traveled all the "hard places" in my youth (and I was pushing it in NZ since Brian and I were over 30), so I would be fit enough to experience everything each place had to offer. We were constantly in the company of retirees who looked at Brian and me with that same bright and sad look of my friends back home - happy to see us having fun and sad that they were already too old to enjoy it. I am now "too old". It is a bitter pill to swallow. However, I am "too old" having experienced a lot of adventure in life - for which I have zero regrets.
Queenstown was the last of the "crazy" vacations Brian and I had. After New Zealand, we may have travelled to far flung places, but there was no more white-water rafting, bungy jumping, or parasailing. I am happy we went there when we did and did not put off New Zealand for our more sedate years. Queenstown is for young people full of energy and not yet acrophobic. I went as a young man with full knowledge that one chapter of life was drawing to a close. I was indeed blessed and lucky.