Thief escapes by paraglide

A woman believed to have stolen a watch from a Queenstown shop later escaped police capture by paragliding from the top of a gondola and disappearing.

Constable Aaron Owen said the woman entered a shop yesterday morning and asked to look at a couple of watches.

The shop attendant temporarily left the woman with the watches on the counter while helping other customers but returned to find the woman and one of the watches -- a $250 silver and gold coloured Anne Klein -- had disappeared.

Mr Owen said the woman was "very talkative" and had told the attendant about her plan to go bungy jumping at the town's Skyline complex.

He said he went to the complex, discovered the woman had gone up in the gondola and waited at the bottom for her to return.

"She had gone up about 45 minutes before I arrived so I thought she might be down soon.

"But during that time she has got a parapente ride and floated down over the top of me," Mr Owen said.

"We thought she had popped up there to have a bungy and would come back down."

He said he later discovered the woman had earlier purchased a ticket for the ride and probably didn't know he was waiting for her.

Police described the woman as a "scrawny" and talkative Caucasian aged in her 30s with a weather-beaten complexion.

- NZPA