XTREME!

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It's been an action-packed week or so for us over here. We have made it down to Queenstown where the weather is once again changable it can be nice and sunny, bitterly cold, monsoonlike and we even encountered a hail storm earlier today.

On our way to Queenstown we passed through Glacier Country, which, as the name implies, is where you go to look at Glaciers. We went and looked at the Franz Josef Glacier which is basically a massive bit of ice, sort of like a frozen river decending out of the mountain range into a rain forrest at the bottom.

We headed on to the superiorly named 'Fox's Glacier', the biggest dissappointment is that they dont sell Fox's Glacier Mints over here so none of the locals thought it was as funny as we did. We decided to go on a half day trip walking up to the Glacier and then on it. It was well worth the money, we got to climb through ice crevices and squeeze through ice tunnels, getting very wet in the process. Later on Cat got mildly hyperthermic, she is ok now though

Queenstown itself seems really nice, its not that big but it has a relaxing yet lively feel to it. It is also the home of New Zealands XTREME! activities (failing to spell it in capitals, minus the E and without an exclamation mark renders the activites not nearly as exciting, or should that be XCITIN'!, not sure).

We kicked things off with a trip to an indoor crazy golf centre, which was actually pretty good, it had loads of moving parts and Cat beat me, but she was cheating I think.

After the adrenaline had died down from the crazy golf we decided to go on the Shotover Jet-Boat, which bombs through the Shotover River Canyon at speeds up to 50mph, missing the rocks on both sides by inches, whilst pulling some XCITIN'!!! 360 degree turns. We got very wet but had WESOM! fun (that was meant to be awesome but the rules don't really work there do they).

So what could be more extreme than that I hear you ask, well Cat got her nose pierced, that was further than I was willing to go though.

After this we decided to top it off with a bungy jump, this was genuinely scary, a massive freefall from a cable-car type thing suspended above a canyon, about 134m or 440ft for our older readers. I went first and have to say it was amazing fun (whilst still be scary, more so than the parachute jump). Cat decided against this one and instead has opted to take on a 43m one tomorrow, still reasonably scary though.

Thats about it, off to take in the pleasures of Milford Sound, weather depending, apparently the road is often closed because of snow...

(Jet boat and bungy photos to follow)

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Photos

Fox Glacier's Terminal Face
(the edge of it!)

Feeding the Ducks
Have the dog's been reincarnated??

Comments

[Roz]

AAAAA i miss queenstown!! if you go hang gliding you might have someone called dave - ask him about the little blonde english girl who threw up....yes, that was me. I wanted to do the helicopter ride up the glacier but the weather was so bad that i couldnt do it (sod walking!!), your photos look soooo good! Cat, i wanna see your nose!! Keep having a great time xxxxxx

[Chris]

milford
Hi Mate, sounds like all is still going well. Glad you suvived the xtremes of crazy golf!vMake sure you do get to milford is amazing. We are home now... its rubbish stay as long as you can!

[Lindsay]

i miss it tooo!
Iv been on that boat! My dad did a similar bungee and we wetn to the Fox glaciers aswell. amazing places. Glad your ok im off to the worlds next week. x x x x x

[mischa]

hahaha you did the same ones as me! they are phat man!