New Zealand Part 1 : June 13 - 24

Queenstown : Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Once again we awoke to incredibly blue skies. It certainly appears that we made the right choice to bolt south once we saw the weather starting to clear. Unfortunately along with the blue skies comes the bitterly cold weather. Brian is making do with his clothes from Calgary (several layers) but the rest of the family had broken down and purchased turtle necks, fleeces, gloves etc. Even with that we are much less dressed than the locals.

Our bungy was not until 1:00, so we decided to do some local touring first. We headed off to Arrowtown, 20 minutes north of Queenstown. This is a very picturesque old gold mining village. They also have a great walk through an old Chinese settlement just on the outside of town. The town itself is roughly 2 streets comprising 10-12 blocks. We weren’t sure what to expect when we arrived and were very pleasantly surprised. It has an excellent museum that focuses on the gold rush that occurred here in the 1860s. It was certainly rough back then. There were also a bunch of terrific shops. If we were in the market for wool sweaters etc. this would have been the place to get them. They even offered Possum coats (much softer than sheep wool). We quickly ran out of time (Deb insists that we go back tomorrow after the boating), and had to head off to the bungy place.

Twenty minutes later we pulled up at AJ Hackett’s Bungy Zone. The river looked colder than ever, and the jump bridge was covered in tons of frost. Brennan however was as enthusiastic as ever and bolted from the car. We had to hold him back for some photos in front of the bridge! It wasn’t until we got down the stairs inside the building to the check in stall that things started to change. Somewhere between the T-shirts, and the large video screens showing the jumpers, Brennan decided that maybe he should have looked into this extreme sport a bit more. He suggested that we watch a few jumpers before our registration. Brian knew where this was going but decided to go along with it. The viewing platform is located down off the bridge. There are several close circuit video feeds off the jump platform and the bridge so you can get a close up of the guys going off. Brennan was watching guys get strapped in and pushed off backwards. His enthusiasm began to wane, and his colour went decidedly white!

He was having significant second thoughts about the sanity of these actions! The chilling temperatures weren’t helping. Brian had to patiently explain that we had already paid our money, and that Brennan would really regret not going through with this. Brennan wasn’t sure if this was a threat or a philosophical observation on his father’s part. It took a good 15 minutes of “discussion” to convince Brennan that this was indeed something he wanted to do. By this time, a bus had come in and we were now several people in front of us. To add to his growing anxiety, we now had to wait up on the bridge in the cold before doing the jump!

Saying goodbye to Deb and Sierra (who offered all sorts of support and advice), we headed up to the bridge. We got suited up into a climbing harness and after about 15 minutes it was our turn to jump! Brian had decided it was best if he went first. He was betting on the fact that the uncertainty of the consequences of bailing out after Brian jumped would be a bigger fear than debating the issue with Brian still up there. Brian’s legs were wrapped up and tied to the bungy rope. The guy advised Brian that there might be a water “touch” with this one.

Standing out on the ledge was a big thrill. Brian’s not afraid of heights and is used to diving. With some hard rock music blasting in the background, Brian got the countdown and dove out (a big swan dive). What a blast!!! The freefall seemed to go forever and Brian almost touched the water. After several bounces and waves to Deb and Sierra while hanging upside down from the bridge, the recovery boat pulled underneath Brian and whisked him away. Now it was Brennan’s turn.

It took some time for Brennan to appear at the ledge. Brennan says they had to change the music tape to Reggae! Once on the ledge we could see there was some confusion. We saw the countdown, 3,2,1 … Nothing. Then we saw the guy tell Brennan he had to let go of the bridge! Brennan assumed the dive position 3,2,1… nothing! By this time we see some more discussion going on. Brennan has been standing out on the ledge for a considerable period of time now. Getting cold, more nervous??? Brennan assumes the dive position, bends his legs and this time the countdown starts 5,4,3,2,1 and Brennan leaps out. He had great, great style! It was a perfect swan dive that he held all the way down. Then we got the thumbs up/down as he was bouncing upside down above the water. He seemed a little anxious to get back into the boat. Either way he was very pumped by the events! He told us later that the confusion came from the fact that he thought the guy was going to push him off the edge! No push, no jump was Brennan’s reasoning.

After purchasing the video and reviewing our pictures, we were done. We even got the T-shirt, and extreme sport number 4 went into the record books. We are all very proud of Brennan. Not only did he face down something that obviously was very scary to him, he was a very good sport about the ribbing he took for standing on the ledge so long.

Heading back to town, we made several detours to check out the various Lord of the Rings film sites. They sort of look the same but with the added computer animation etc. you can never be quite sure. We arrived back at the hotel around 4:00 after a very full day. Unfortunately we found that somewhere during our last 1-2 days of travel the kids had lost the small pouch that contained their game boy games. They still have the players and the games that were in them, but that’s it. The other games are not to be seen anywhere. Oh well! Maybe they will turn up in the luggage somewhere. The ironic thing is that for two months in Australia while they had their games, they weren’t able to charge the players. (It was something to do with the power cycles…) In New Zealand, they have been able to charge but now they don’t have any games. It was an expensive loss.

Brian stayed back at the hotel to finish journaling while Deb and the kids grabbed a bus downtown for some dinner and take in some of Queenstown’s winter festival activities. It was Mardi Gras night. Tomorrow all of us Jet Boat!

Wednesday, June 27, 2006: Queenstown, New Zealand

Today we welcomed Deb and Sierra into the extreme sports club! We woke up once more to hoar frost and very cold temperatures. I was on the computer early finishing off some banking and getting the latest web installment ready to post. It usually takes us 1-2 hours a night to journal and process the photos. To post a country or segment up onto the web site generally takes an additional 6-7 hours worth of work, so it’s a bit of effort. The kids had a lazy sleep in morning as our jet boat tour wasn’t scheduled to 11:00.

We showed up at the Shotover Jet tours right on time. (www.shotoverjet.com ) While there are lots of jet boat tours in New Zealand these guys are really the original ones who made the sport big. They also focus exclusively on the famous canyon runs where they run at 80 km/hr down narrow canyons spinning 360s and missing the walls by just inches. We were told that if you wanted serious thrills this was where you went.

Unfortunately when we showed up for our 11:00 trip, we were informed that the runs in the morning were cancelled due to excess ice on the river. We rescheduled for 1:00. The site is only 10-15 minutes drive north of town so it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. We headed back into town to do some shopping and grab a bite of lunch. The kids had some gifts they wanted to pick up and after much shopping around Brennan finally found an All Blacks Rugby shirt that wasn’t going to bankrupt him. After a quick pit stop at the hotel to drop off shopping bags, we were back in the car trying for a second time to “jet the river”.

This time things went according to plan. The ice was off the river and we were on the second boat of the day. What a rush! It was freezing cold in the boat with the spray and the wind but it was well worth it. The canyons are super narrow and these jet boat drivers miss the walls by mere inches! The boats are highly specialized, drawing only 3 inches of draft. The down side of the speed is that they end up sucking over 2.5 liters of gas per minute! That’s a lot by anybody’s standards.

As the driver zipped down the river missing rocks and logs, he would often throw in a 360 or two. Some of these spins were completely by surprise; like in the middle of a canyon with only 3 feet of clearance on either side! Deb and the kids loved every minute of it, despite the cold. We now survived 5 out of 5 of the extreme sports we had aimed to do. Lucky us. The rest of the day was spent posting the web site and catching up on some our many emails. We also have to plan our return to the North Island and begin to get a handle on some hotels and places we need to stop and see. Hopefully the 2 nd half of the trip to New Zealand will be as great as the first half. Later!  ( NEXT PAGE )