We are now in Queenstown, which is pretty far south on the South Island and the center for adrenaline activities (to be discussed later). We have been pretty busy since our last e-mail. We took a full day bus ride from Christchurch (on the east coast) to Fox Glacier (on the west coast). Fox Glacier is a booming metropolis of 150 people. Anyway, we spent our first (and only full day there) doing a heli-hike, where they took us up in a helicopter about 2/3 of the way up the glacier and dropped us off. We were with a guide that equipped us with crampons so that we could grip the ice and they helped us by carving steps where the going was steep. From there we hiked around for about 2 hours. It was amazing to see so much ice, snow and water. It was hard to get a sense of perspective until you saw another person off in the distance and realize how large the glacier really is. It was soooo massive! It is one of the fastest moving in the world also (moving 12-15 feet per day) due to the geography of the canyon, so it had lots of crevasses and buckles from the ice breaking and moving. Once when we were standing by an ice wall we heard a substantial pop, which we were told was the ice moving. That was wild. Towards the end of our hike, the guides found a long but narrow ice cave. We crawled through it and saw the innards of a glacier. It was that wonderful blue ice, it almost seemed like being in a neon blue light tube.
It is amazing how this island seems to show Mother Nature in her full glory. I have never seen such spectacles and they never seem to end! In addition, there are so few people that live here. After Forx we headed further south and we seemed to discover isolated beautiful pure blue lakes surrounded by mountains one after the other. We never did see a boat of a fisherman. As we passed one of the most popular lakes the bus driver commented that usually you see about 4 boats on this one. During the holidays there may even be 20. Wow! It was large. It is unbelievable when at home it would be packed with boats, jet skids, etc. All we seem to see is pasture, pasture, and pasture alongside beautiful scenery. And we have seen a lot of deer ranches, which we had never seen before. Here they farm for venison. It would make for some very easy hunting!
So, at the end of that long, but glorious bus ride we landed ourselves in Queenstown. You will never guess where this city is… on the shore of a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains! The whole economy seems to exist on adrenaline based activities. They have come up with it all! Bungi jumping, bungi rocket?, Skydiving, hangliding, paragliding, fly by wire, river sledging, river surfing, canyoning, jet boating, luge and so on and so on. Don’t worry we don’t understand half of them either, other than that they involve a “rush” of some sort. Chad’s personal favorite is zorbing. He wants to sign up if we ever make it back here again. It involves being suspended in a large inflatable wiffle ball that they roll down a hill. They can also add water if you want a “wet wash”
We signed ourselves up for skydiving and river surfing. We felt we were required to do something crazy since here it is the norm. Heidi never thought she would allow herself to fall out of a plane at 12,000 feet, but lo and behold, Chad was convincing! It was unbelievable. There was 45 seconds of freefall and then the chute opened and it was a peace like I couldn’t have imagined. In the pictures during freefall our faces are more contorted than I could have thought from the speed. It is quite entertaining. Although actually Chad was still quite handsome. Not fair.
After that we tried River Surfing. That is going through class 2 and 3 rapids onHEre we have our own room, with a shared bath, and the hostel has a hot tub (Happy Heidi) and it is only about $16 per night!
Tomorrow we are off on a 3 day hike in the mountains. I guess I will walk off my soreness. We will be staying in huts that they have set up along the trail. A bed is provided but we need to pack in our own food, sleeping bags, etc. Fortunately we can store most of our belongings in Queenstown, so our load shouldn’t be too heavy.