Anything but the Bungy

Lyttelton-based Joe Bennett, author of Hello Dubai: Skiing, Sand and Shopping in the World’s Weirdest City, tells the Telegraph why Queenstown is his kind of town. “It’s the main visitor town of New Zealand’s South Island, encapsulating why many people visit the country,” Bennett explains. “Set amid stunning mountains beside a startling lake, it looks like a brochure made flesh.” What’s the first thing he does when he arrives? I go to see the fish. There’s a jetty at the wharf with an underwater viewing room. Drop a dollar in the slot and pellets are fed into the lake. Instantly eels writhe up to the glass, huge trout scythe through the water and little native ducks dive for the pellets, their plumage turned silver by the trapped air.” Bennett prefers to stay at the Novotel or Hikurangi Lodge. He prefers not to bungy-jump: “I was scared, then I jumped, then I bounced, then I dangled, then I was retrieved, then I was given a certificate telling me I’d just experienced an awesome adrenalin rush. I hadn’t.”