This morning we got up and headed over to go on the Shotover Jet. We put on some splash jackets and life jackets. There were only 7 of us on the boat. It was overcast and cold out, and even colder on the boat! They go really fast down and up the river and drive really close by to the canyon walls and through the shallow parts of the river. It was fun, but freezing out. Especially the first run down the river. My ears got cold, my face was freezing and my forehead went numb. It felt like I had the worst ice cream headache! After awhile though it felt warmer because we moved to a less cold part of the river. Also the handlebars on the boat are heated, which was really really nice. ... read more

It rained through the night and in the morning it was still raining, so we headed off on our long drive to Wanaka (about 5 hours from Fox Glacier). A little while after we had started our drive the weather cleared up, and then there was SUN! It was a really beautiful drive. The Haast pass follows alongside the river, and then through the mountains (that still have snow on the top of them). We drove alongside a lot of lakes as well. Since the weather was so nice, we stopped off at a couple of waterfalls along the way. We went to Thunder Creek waterfall, which seemed really popular because there were a ton of cars and buses parked to go there. Also we went to Fantail Falls, which had way less people and you ... read more

Today we did the knife-making workshop in Barrytown, which was a lot of fun. It was an all day activity, but I think we both really enjoyed it. It is held with about 8 people in a couple's yard/house. We got to do a lot of hands-on stuff, but the harder stuff was done for us or we got a lot of assistance. We started by getting our steel to put in the fire and bang on anvils. The guy running the workshop, Steve, used mine as a sample, so I got a lot of help on it. But I did get to bang on it for a bit before he came and shaped the steel into the general shape of how I wanted the blade to be. He went around to everyone to shape theirs. ... read more

We got up early and got ready to finish our drive north. Our instruction for our kayaking started around 8:30a or so. We got a double kayak, and learned about safety, and how to use all the stuff on it. We packed our stuff into the middle berth and got all our gear on. We had to wear a skirt (to seal us in and keep the water out) and a life jacket. We got taught the basics on how to paddle forward, backward, turning, etc. Also what to do if our kayak flipped over. At about 10am or so we headed to the beach to meet up with our instructor and our kayaks. The tide was out, so we had a lot of sand to walk over to reach the water. We got in the ... read more

Today we headed toward Nelson. We made some small excursions and did a few little hikes on the way. One was to the top of a small hill that had good views of the surrounding area. The other was at Pelorus Bridge. We took a quick hike down to the river. They had a ton of perfect skipping stones all around it. Adam was really good at skipping the stones. I wasn't. The water in the river was beautiful and clear. It was a lot of fun to just hang out. Adam explored a little bit, and then we found a 30 minute loop walk (the Totara Path). It was a really nice walk through the trees (and the giant fern trees which were awesome). Later that afternoon we went to the World of Wearable Art ... read more