Flying High

To Queenstown, New Zealand

Dex and Kylie have taken to sleeping in til 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning giving us adults a chance to sneak out for an "early" morning coffee and scone. The Provision Cafe was a few blocks away in the residential area of this quiet little town of Arrowtown. The township was originally a Chinese settlement for workers during the gold rush that started in the 1880's.

Scones and coffee at the Provision Cafe

We had only stayed in Arrowtown because there wasn't room last night in Queenstown. With that remedied today, we drove the few miles there. One thing that is definitely clear is that there's no shortage of activities in Queenstown.  Advertisements and activity pamphlets are everywhere: mountain biking, quad biking, kayaking, white water rafting, jet boating, parasailing, paragliding, hang gliding, skydiving, bungy jumping, bungy swinging….

No sooner had we settled into our new camp than we made the impulsive decision to sign up for the 12:00 paragliding trip. No time like the present. That'd give us half an hour to eat a snack and get ourselves together. At 11:45, we were met outside the camp by a shuttle van, each weighed before boarding, then shuttled up to Coronet Peak outside of town where we met each of our guides. Guides were selected based on our weight -- the biggest guides (Big Tom) with the smallest passengers (Kylie).  Each was from a different country -- England, the Czech Republic, Chile, the US….

Once the harness was on, there was little to do but wait for our guides to spread out the paraglider, clip us into it, and wait for the breeze to pick up. In short, it was totally awesome! It was a beautiful day, and I'm sure we all could have easily spent hours soaring over the hills. Our guides spent much of the flight taking pictures and GoPro videos as they zig zagged along the hills toward the landing spot far below. It all went off without a hitch despite the guides declaring a 90% success rate! Once on ground, it was fun to relive the flight, though for $60 each, we decided we'd just have to rely on memories.

Dex and guide ready to launch...

... and they're off!

De Ann flying high

With the excitement over, we headed back to camp where the kids played at the nearby school playground for a while. Later, we all walked downtown for lunch and to visit the small rocky beach. This being a sun drenched Saturday, there were tons of people milling about and lying on the rocks. De Ann, an avid rock collector, recruited Dex and Kylie to help find unique specimens.

Finally, though, the heat got to us. Kylie and I dived in to the ice fed Lake Wakatipu before renting kayaks so we all could explore the lake. We wiled away the time watching the Jet boats, para sailers, and shark boats zoom around. The shark boat was particularly interesting.  Not surprisingly, it looked a lot like a shark and would zoom around the lake with just one or two passengers in the enclosed cockpit. Then, towards the end of its short circuit around the lake, it would submerge then leap out of the water. It looked pretty cool, though the "leap" was more like a breaching whale.

Queenstown's Lake Wakatipu

Shark boat

For dinner, Meg and De Ann used the outdoor camp kitchen to make an awesome salmon and rice dinner. I can get used to this kind of roughing it!

Just near the campground was a row of posters advertising the array of different Queenstown activities. One sign encouraged tourists to sign up and create some memories. No doubt you could easily keep yourself busy with amazing activities for weeks. However, with the jaw dropping prices -- two, three or four hundred dollars per event -- I think a more accurate slogan would be "Create some memories, leave behind lots of cash!"

Eating a delicious salmon dinner