BE a tidy KiWi

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In New Zealand we encountered a lot of new things like the fruits Feijoa and Tamarillo, very yummy, and driving on the other side of the road.  I have never been so nervous and I'm still getting use to it.  Everytime we make a turn we say 'sharp left' or 'WIDE right.' In the north Island we spent New Years in a crowded Maori bar with a bunch of island girls we met at our hotel.  It was miles of fun, as they'd say here (even though they use kilometers).  Yesterday we saw the Waitomo caves, filled with glow worms which aren't worms at all but look like a starry night inside a dark cave.  It was unreal.  Then we went to Rotorua to see the Tewhakarewarewatangaoleopetauaawahaio geothermal park.  It took ten minutes for our guide to teach us how to say it.  It's the longest word in the world and it means the uprising of the warrior wahaio.  The Maori language is a little difficult to pronounce.  The sculptures and customs are a lot like Rapa Nui/Easter Island.  Anyway it is a native village where 70 Maori live with geysers and pools of boiling teal water, fenced off of course.  We didn't hot tub in the boiling ones. Kiwi's (the people) are extremely clean, eco conscious and friendly.  Everywhere you look there are opportunities to recycle.  It's great.  No wonder their country is so pristine. We've been on the road for what seems like weeks
First stop was Queenstown, which we were really keen on.  Imagine a lake that looks like tropical water in the carribean with steep mountain peaks all around it covered in lush green vegetation.  It was soooo clean.  The town is filled with adrenaline junkies and really fit people.  In the winter it's a big snowboard and ski resort town but in the summer they act like bungy jumping and skydiving are normal things to do.  We went down the shotover river in a jet boat.  It was jolly good fun =) You get so close to the canyon walls it feels like you are going to hit the rocks but then you spin out in a 360 degree turn and keep on going.  I'm not sure how the boats don't flip but we spent the whole 30 minutes down the river laughing, screaming and wiping the water from our faces.  Then we started the drive to Te Anau lake.  It's hard not to enjoy the driving in this country because the scenery is just gorgeous.  Next time you watch lord of the rings pay attention to the background; that's what we drove through.  We walked along the lake taking in the view and packed tons of food for our climb to the Milford Sound.  The Maori story behind the Milford Sound is that one of their gods decided to chop through the mountains to make a path for the fisherman and in the process created such a beautiful spectacle that she was worried people would want to stay, so.. she also created pesky sand flies to remind the humans of their immortality.  We experienced the sandflies and they are quite annoying.  Really the sound was formed by Glaciers like everything else around here.  This makes the peaks dramatically high and the water depth super deep.  Words cannot describe how beautiful it is; you just have to see for yourself.  I will send pictures when I get home but the problem is the views are all around and you can only capture one frame on a camera.  In the sound we saw lots of bottle nose dolphins and seals that came in from the ocean.  It was hard to leave but we had to head back to Queenstown to JUMP out of a plane.  Our skydive was from 12,000 ft.  The plane was a bit dodgey (sketchy). Angela was scared it would fall apart before we had a chance to jump out of it but I assured her that the little plane probably had the same engine as her sewing machine which has not let her down.  just kidding.  So as nervous as we were we jumped out of the plane and free fell for what felt like an entire minute.  The view was breath taking or maybe that was the anxiety but I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.  Oh and did I mention my instructor was a girl, pretty awesome.  She landed me safely at which time Angela and I screamed and hugged.  We bought shirts of course and over heard that the wind was expected to get stronger so they were closing the airfield until further notice.  Lucky dogs, we are.  The next trek was to the Franz Joseph Glacier where we were scheduled to take a helicopter ride.  We drove through two national parks and two incredible lakes to get there but unfortunately it started to rain, after all we were in a rain forest, and it didn't stop. Actually it was more like a torrential downpour.  It was coming down so hard it felt like we were driving under one of the many waterfalls we saw, I could hardly see. Hence no heli ride.  We made it out and back to Christchurch but it was a little scary.  I have been driving the whole trip because Angela can't drive a stick.  I tried to teach her and she actually did well but that doesn't mean she wanted to take over on these roads.  Today our goal was to see actual kiwi birds.  We even went to a zoo since we haven't seen them in the wild. We saw every other bird and flightless bird native to New Zealand but the kiwi's were hiding.  They are endangered so I guess it makes sense but we were very sad not see one in real life.  We did eat tons of kiwi fruit and accidentally took a video of one on the vine. We swam with Hector's dolphins, the smallest dolphins, in Akaroa.  They take you out on a boat and have you jump out with two rocks to hit together under the water, then the dolphins appear and swim in figure eights around you. It’s magical.
 
p.s.  I had a NZ police encounter today.  I got a speeding ticket for going 114 kilometers per hour.  The equivalent of 68 mph.  Apparently there's a national speed limit of 60mph.  Needless to say it's been a well rounded trip.

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