New Zealand Part 5

I've decided to post some journal entries from my travels in New Zealand for the benefit of those who won't get see the pictures or talk with me about it. Mind you, this is not a narrative meant to explain everything about New Zealand and my time there, only a reproduction of what I thought was worth putting into my own journal. Enjoy, post any questions as comments and I'll respond as soon as I can.

November 4th, Queenstown

I love that it still light out here past 8pm... I will miss that when I return to the states.

Started today out by hitting up the I-site and getting a couple things booked. Tomorrow we'll go kayaking and skydiving will happen on Saturday! Afterwards we went to the Queenstown Gardens. They are great, with some nice flowers and tall trees, duck pond, a stereotypical gazebo, all very scenic. It is also the site of New Zealand's first disc-golf course! Anna and I played our way through the gardens, a fun way to tour through it. It's also a bit of an arboretum, with plants from all over the world including an Oregon Doug Fir!

We stopped in at the underwater observatory on the way back. NZ$5.00 seemed a bit over the top for an admission price at first. One one room, 4 windows peering straight into the lake. But when the enormous trout started swarming for the food and the ducks were diving and the eels creeping out Anna it was pretty cool. Mostly rainbow and brown trout in the lake.

After lunch we went for a hike up Queenstown hill. It's a very vertical hike, but the view from the top is fantastic! The is definitely Lord of the Rings country. The hike up definitely got the heart pumping and the last bit to the summit is essential!

Had a takeaway pizza for dinner. Not too good really, the sauce was tasty but needed about 5x more of it to really work. It's always tough to find good pizza abroad, except perhaps in Italy.

November 5th, Queenstown

Did a kayak trip with Rippled Earth out in Glenorchy today. Our guide, Sam, started this touring company three years ago and it's going strong. He was full of great info about all the birds and beasts. There are a couple of islands we saw, Pig and Pigeon islands. We took a hike on pigeon after kayaking across lake Wakatipu to get to it. Sam made us homemade tea and cakes, which was very tasty and impressed Anna a lot. There is a free cabin on the island that is first-come/first-served, they just ask that you leave firewood for the next people to use it! Would love to rent some kayaks and stay in the cabin for a couple nights next time!

Like yesterday we made an afternoon hike, this time along the lakefront to Frankton. Took about an hour and it was very pleasant. A multi-use path runs between the two town, which seems to be heavily used by people living in Frankton and working in Queenstown. I would definitely do that if I lived here.

Fish and Chips from PJ's for dinner - yum!

November 6th, Queenstown

SKYDIVING IS AWESOME!!!

Anna and I jumped from 12,000ft today with N-Zone skydiving. We could have gone from 15,000ft but it was too much money.

It was such a thrill though! Chris (my tandem "jump master" - michael jordan might be offended) made us do a backflip coming out the door, then lead me through a couple spins as we plummeted earthwards. Seeing the Remarkables mountains from above is quite a treat!

What struck me most were two things:
1) I had no fear or nervousness as we jumped. I was just amped up and eager to go, which excited my jump master.
2) After the parachute opens it is so quite up there! No rushing wind, no street noise, no people talking or music playing or anything, just pure quiet attending to you and the amazing scenery.

As soon as we landed I immediately wanted to go up again. Maybe I should learn how to be a tandem jumper? Apparently on a busy day the jump masters here will do as many as 10 jumps!

That night we had a brilliant dinner on the waterfront at a restaurant at Pier 19. I had the hereford beef, and Anna the venison, and we split a bottle of local pinot noir. Might have been the finest meal I've ever had.