The Rugby Sevens is a rugby tournament where smaller teams compete. "Seven" refers to the number of players on each time, as opposed to the usual 15. Because there are less than half the players on the field, the game has much more offensive ball movement, and the scoring is higher. The tournament in Queenstown was for all New Zealand and lasted several days. J had a great time talking with people in the crowd about the Rugby rules. Apparently, the Sevens are kind of a minor-league, where the best players go on to be running backs for t [View Full Entry]

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Much of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed around Queenstown, and there are many tours capitalizing on this. We were recommended one that included a jetboat ride - Dart River Safaris. The tour was really fun - it started with a bus ride to Glenorchy and lunch. On the 45 minute bus ride, a small boy of about 8 started talking with J and thought he was super cool. The rest of the trip he kept running up and telling J what he had just done. After lunch we rode an off road vehicle around to various LOTR locations. [View Full Entry]

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Queenstown is known as the adventure capital of New Zealand. The world's first commercial bungee operation started here, and jetboat and other extreme activities abound. Unfortunately, the price for these activities is incredibly high. J "would have" bungee jumped, if it were not for the > $100 price per jump. You can go skydiving or paragliding in the States for cheaper than that! We decided to watch the jumpers and jetboaters today, and get the feel for Queenstown, since we have several days here. The setting of the town is absolutely incredible, and has to be one of the most beau [View Full Entry]

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It was a long drive to Queenstown, but with a number of fun stops! First, we took a little hike to the Blue Pool, a small lake and river along the highway. If you haven't heard about the sand fleas in this part of New Zealand, let us tell you about them. They are tiny, almost undetectable. They swarm you. They bite. The bites don't start to itch for several days. The itching lasts another week at least. With the changeable weather, we were luckily wearing long pants and long sleeves, but still did not escape unscathed. We concurred with many [View Full Entry]

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One of the most unique things about New Zealand is it's incredibly varied landscape. The glaciers in the Southwest are a big attraction, and we decided to hike to both of them in the same day. Franz Joseph is larger, although currently more difficult to walk directly up to. Fox glacier is a bit smaller, but you can walk right up to, and onto, the ice if you dare. There are also guided hikes with crampons and ropes, as well as helicopter flights to the top of the glacier. Like all things New Zealand, the prices were quite high, and we [View Full Entry]

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We stayed with two other guests from Sydney in Reefton, and they told us about two B&Bs near the glaciers which we booked at the local I-Site. We left Reefton and stopped in Greymouth, which was a nice sized town that reminded us of both Aberdeen and Bellingham in Washington State. Continuing on, we visited Ross Gold Fields, a mining town that mined gold up until the 1980s. There is a nice museum and hike around the mines; plus a gift shop with everything you could want for a guy named Ross. We stayed in a B&B on a farm a [View Full Entry]

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We had heard about a "swim with the dolphins adventure" in town and not only was it pricey, it also was booked up since it was high season. We had decided to skip it, but the Dutch couple staying at the B&B with us convinced us at breakfast that it was not to be missed! Our hostess helped us to get on the waiting list, and sure enough, two spots for the 7 AM swim opened up on Monday morning. After our awesome seal swim yesterday, we were quite excited to go on a swim in the open ocean with wild [View Full Entry]

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Since both of us finished the dolphin swim this morning almost totally seasick, the thought of driving over six hours to our next planned destination of Franz Joseph glacier wasn't appealing. We decided to drive just a few hours into the mountains and stop at a little town on the way named Reefton. Reefton ended up being a really cute, backwoods type of town that you could say was "Small town New Zealand" - and if you've been to Alaska, it was very much like a small Alaskan town. There was an "oriental restaurant" and a couple of other restaurants and [View Full Entry]

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We went into a local dive shop this morning and got suited up for the snorkel with seals. We each wore a 7mm "farmer john" wetsuit (overalls), and a 7mm long sleve wetsuit jacket. Plus of course booties and a hood. This is the coldest water that we've ever snorkeled in at about 12C (53F). With us we had a guide, boat pilot (from the very similar Tofino, Canada), underwater photographer, and two other customers that had never snorkeled before. We took a gutted out van down to the docks, and hopped on a small boat that took us out to [View Full Entry]

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We stumbled upon something about Kaikoura in a book long before coming to New Zealand and we thought, "We have to go there someday!"  It just seemed to us the ultimate destination for small town, majestic coastline, and amazing wildlife.  And Kaikoura did not let us down.   About 30 minutes outside of town, we stopped to take in an incredible view of a bay of surfers.  It reminded me of someplace along the PCH, near Big Sur.  We asked one of the surfers who was kicking back with his girlfriend at a picnic table, wetsuit hanging outside of his VW [View Full Entry]

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