3, 2, 1--BUNGY!!!!

Today was awesome. It's our last full day in Queenstown and we could not leave without doing the bungy jumping off of the Kawarau Bridge. This bridge was where the first bungy jump took place by A.J Hackett in 1988. We had planned on doing a tandem bungy jump but due to the higher water level of the river below us, it wasn't safe to do.
Earlier this morning, we had signed up to do our jumps at 3pm. We drove to Arrowtown (a town just outside of Queenstown) to have lunch and check out this little town that is famous for the Gold Rush in 1862. Arrowtown is a 5 minute drive from the bridge so we hung around town and went for a walk down by the river and then headed over to the bungy area two hours early to just watch some jumps. Luke was so excited and didn't seem to ever really get nervous. As for me, I could feel my heart pounding, palms sweating, and butterflies in my stomach for the next two hours. I decided I couldn't handle just sitting and watching this since i was so dang nervous. So, we saw a little winery just down the road and decided to go do a wine tasting. And besides tasting some delicious wines, why not take the edge off of the anxiety a little bit?
While at the winery, we met a great couple who were in town from Michigan. They were an older couple and had been traveling for 10 weeks thru Australia and NZ. They even came over to watch us do our bungy jumping and they both cheered for us and video taped us.
So we got weighed in-had a ticket with our weight on and they wrote our weight on our hand in red marker (real nice). This is how they adjust their rope for each person.
I was first and I remembered that the first time i bungy jumped in WI I was a little scaredy cat and stood for 5 min before i went. My goal was to not do that. So the nice guy gave me a good pep talk and he counted down and off the bridge i went. Then I was able to watch Luke and he did an awesome swan dive off the bridge and they dunked him in the river up to his belly button!! We could hear on the video the guy say "that'll give him a good lil shock." It was an absolute blast and we are soooo glad we did it. And, we survived to talk about it. We will download pictures of our jumps later from the companies website. 43 meter jump...

We just got back from going out for dinner at a pub down the street. This time we had to try Tui's beer, the second beer recommended by one of my friend's. Had some good grub and now we are gonna plot out our journey to Mt Cook which we will be heading to tomorrow morning after we get up. It should be about a 3-4 hour drive for us.

Oh Let the Sun Shine In!

  After a couple cloudy, drizzly days, today was much better!  Blue skies, sun shining, and just the slightest breeze.  And I think the temp was about 75 degrees.  So....pretty much the same weather as it sounds like everyone is having back home!  Ha! 

  The Mrs. and I got up this morning and got ready for our Mildford Sound tour.  We were supposed to go yesterday, but it was rescheduled do to the weather.  This actually worked out in our favor as today was perfect.  The tour consisted of a 40 minute flight through the mountains out to Milford Sound, where we then hopped on board a ship and took a one hour forty minute cruise out to the Tasman Sea and back.  Then another 40 minute flight home. 

Now, it wasn't just any flight.  This was on a teeny weeny 9 seat dual-propelled little plane!  Neither of us have ever been on anything close to this small of a plane, but luckily the ride was fairly smooth.  The views during the two flights were AMAZING!  Green forests, winding rivers, crystal clear lakes, and snow capped mountains.  It was awesome.  We took tons of pictures so hopefully some of them turned out all right.  The cruise was nice too, but it was quite crowded with anxious tourists.  We did get to see a lot of beautiful waterfalls that were coming down the mountain side right into the fjord.  Also, the boat pulled up right next to a little seal colony.  They were laying out on the rocks soaking up the sun!  All in all, this was a very worthwhile tour and it's so cool we got to do this. 

  After we got back to Queenstown, we putzed around town a bit then decided to go for a hike.  We decided to head a direction we hadn't been yet and that took us to Queenstown Hill.  The hill is more like a small mountain and it was considered to be sacred by the original tribes in this area.  There's a nice walking path that takes about 1.5 hours round trip.  Again, absolutley gorgeous views of the city and surrounding area.  There was also a huge pine tree with such massive, evenly spaced out pine cones that the branches looked like big octupus arms!  Oh, and Mom (Cathy), we got a picture just for you....as we walked around a corner going up the hill, there was a few "Rock Stacks".  On the way back down I decided to make my own little stack.  Our own piece of art will forever be in Queenstown....or until some punk kid knocks it over! 

  In the early evening we went and sat down by the lake, as did a lot of people.  I walked around in the water for a bit, but man was it cold.  No way were we going to go swimming in there!  It's too bad too because I don't think there's a cleaner lake around.  The jet boat driver yesterday told us that they say the water is 97% pure and 3% fish.  Found some pretty cool rocks in the water too.  They seem to have specks of gold in them.....and since this town was started by a big gold rush, who knows right?  I'm thinking we should pack as many as we can to bring home and see if we strike it rich.

  Well, now we are just chillin' in the hotel room and winding down.  It stays light here till about 10 o'clock.