Extremish

Queenstown was full of all kinds of extreme sport opportunities that you can think of. However, we decided to start it easy and went for a walk (can you smell the adrenaline?).

We ended up walking to the summit of the hill overlooking Queenstown and not only had nice views but also found a little kiosk offering paragliding. Julie had always wanted to try it, and it doesn't take that much to talk me into throwing myself off a mountain, so we decided to book ourselves in for a flight the next day.

The next morning we were picked up by the wrong paragliding company, then swapped from one van to another, with equally frightened looking people taking our places. After all this human trafficing we were finally on our way to the launch site up Coronet Peak.

Paragliding was great fun (despite the look of horror on my face in all the pictures), and the views over the mountains and lakes were spectacular. After the run down the mountain side and the leap into thin air the ride got really quite steady and comfortable. We even did a few sharp bends and spirals!





After Queenstown we drove up to Wanaka, a nice little town by a beautiful lake. We stopped there for lunch, considered doing another walk, but then decided to rent kayaks instead.



Next stop was Fox glacier. You can get almost to the glaciers edge by yourself, and we did a couple of walks around the glacier and got some nice views. Apart from the glacier there was not much in the town, and we headed off to the next glacier.



Franz Josef glacier was just 30 minutes drive away, and this time we decided to do a guided walk on the glacier. We opted for the full day walk, which included 6 hours on ice. The walk turned out to be one of the nicest experiences so far. The glacier is massive, and the guides managed to find some beautiful blue caves and nice viewpoints for us. I went in the "fast" group, which turned out to be somewhat slowed down by a chap who was afraid of heights (and he just had to put himself in the most adventurous group, didnt he?). We also had an American lady in our group who sang hymns as we plodded on and quoted glacier facts from "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown". Religion and cartoons can be a dangerous cocktail, it seems.