Kawarau Suspension Bridge

The Kawarau bridge was built in 1880 to carry the road between Queenstown and the Central Otago goldfields across a gorge too narrow and too deep to ford. Stone towers, iron cables and a timber deck hang about forty metres above green water moving fast between rock walls. A new road bridge took the traffic in the 1960s and the old one was left standing with nothing to do. In 1988 it became the site of the first commercial bungy jumping operation anywhere, and it has been running since, so the bridge now carries a steady queue of people rather than carts. You can walk out onto the deck without paying anything.

History

Designed by Harry Higginson, the bridge was completed in late 1880 as a key route to the Central Otago goldfields, and traffic moved to a new highway bridge in 1963. It is now the world's first commercial bungy jumping site, run by AJ Hackett, and carries the Queenstown Trail over the river (Wikipedia, Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge).

The main sights

• The 1880 bridge - stone towers, iron cables and timber deck above the gorge.
• The gorge and river - the Kawarau running fast and green between rock walls below.
• The viewing decks - platforms on both banks for watching jumps from the side and from below.
• The old goldfields road - the abandoned alignment the bridge was built to serve.

When to go

Jumping runs year-round in most weather and the site is open through the day, busiest from late morning to mid afternoon when coaches from Queenstown arrive together. Early morning is quiet and the light in the gorge is better before the sun gets overhead. The stop takes about twenty minutes if you are only watching, longer if someone in your party is jumping and needs a queue.

Before you go

The heritage is genuine, but the experience is a commercial operation with a shop, a cafe, a viewing deck and a queue, and the bridge is not presented as a historic structure so much as used as one. The car park fills with coaches through the day. Watching is free but brief. The gorge road is fast and the turn-in comes up quickly, so it is easy to overshoot.

Nearby

The Gibbston vineyards line the same stretch of gorge, with Cromwell and Arrowtown either side.

Key facts