So to another adrenaline fuelled activity-delightful canyoning- NOT. Oh my, for those unfamiliar with canyoning, here is an outline: you put your trust in a burly man(in our case a huge Austrian- not Arnie but of his proportions) as he lowers you over a cliff edge- way too fast mind, whilst you try and master abseiling down the rock face but fail as you get bumped off the rocks and never manage to find your footing. But it's worth it(yeah right) as at the bottom you're forced to dive head first into a freezing pool where no one is quite sure how deep it is but hey, it should be deep enough! And there's more- rock slides which you have to master backwards, rope swings, climbs up the steep rock face and jumps into yet more pools of uncertain depth from a wee 6 or 10m height. Even by chosing the smaller height I was unrewarded as I landed on my left buttock rather than on both cheeks- ooch that hurt. All this "fun" was performed whilst wearing the most inflexible wetsuit which hadn't even dried from the last lucky person to experience the canyon adventure. You may have gathhered I'm not a fan and ended up with many a large bruise not least on my backside! Mark loved it, ah well he's on his own next time.
The following activity was more like it, horseriding. We travelled 30mins out of Queenstown to where some of "The Lord of the Rings" was filmed, a beautiful place called Glenorchy. The horses were great, my horse was Will and he liked to eat as much as possible, it took some muscle to try and stop him grazing every few metres. I thought I was well matched to Will as I do like to munch as frequently as possible but no one was more closely matched than Mark to his horse Tom. It was the most grumpy horse of the bunch and for this reason had to be put at the rear to stop him falling out with the other horses. With quite a few riders in our group Mark and I were quite far apart but I could hear strict instructions from one grump to the other and when Tom was startled by a passing motor bike the group was entertained by Tom galloping off down the road-Mark clinging on for dear life! The grump levels were rising!
The horseriding was fantastic but my already sore bum was even more sore and now sported a lovely blister to add to the canyon bruises. Mark's heart rate took a while to recover(from Tom and not my bum) but the next day it was racing again as we booked onto the river surfing trip. After the canyoning I wasn't too thrilled to be squeezing myself into yet another wetsuit and plunging into the cold rapids of the Kawarau river, however it was great. We had 2 runs of the river, a total of about 24km with many rapids and rocks to navigate. We were given a sledge to lie on and basically it's all down stream from there, great fun! We rounded off our Queenstown fun with a game of crazy golf. We've actually had quite a few games in NZ and my whipping Mark's ass in Tekapo was certainly a highlight!
From Queenstown we drove many miles north to see what the glacial region had to offer. We stayed in Franz Josef and enjoyed a trip to the Fox Glacier nearby. There are only 3 glaciers in the world where you can experience walking through native forest onto the actual ice. It's pretty spectacular being on an amazing glacier surrounded by mountains and forests with the sun beating down.
After this we travelled further north to the edge of the north island and a great place with no roads but lots of beeches, forests and lagoons. This was Abel Tasman and we booked a 2 day camping and kayaking trip. We'd had a bit of experience kayaking but felt a bit unprepared to spend a good 2 full days kayaking an unpredictable sea. Like the river surfing we were pleasantly surprised and had a great trip. we had a double kayak with Mark being in charge of steering(this is obviously too much for a woman to master!), he was sat behind me- a very convenient place to slack off and take a break from paddling as often as he could get away with! He blammed his sore back(what about my sore bum I say), he struggled to get comfy and so I came away with biceps which would intimidate Popeye(and an even sorer bum)!
Following all our exertions we were pleased our next destination was less demanding on physical activity, we headed to Nelson where we raised our bulging biceps to a few nights of the drinking activity. A glass of wine(or many) certainly tastes good after a good workout and numbs the sore back and bum. Cheers!
Our final destination on the south island was Kaikoura, a lovely place on the east coast famous for it's whale watching, seal spotting and dolphin swimming. It's a busy place and we could only get a reserve place on the dolphin swim. We weren't expecting to get to go so we were delighted when we got a last minute place on the 9am trip. Not as delighted to be told we needed to be at the office on time, we got this news at 8.50am whilst still in bed! I've never seen Mark move so fast(well except on that horse) but we made it and it was amazing. We got to swim with 50 or so dusky dolphins, seeing them play and interact with each other is a real priviledge. They're a horny species though, the females mating 3 or 4 times each hour! Well we were happy to join them in their squeals- to attract them we were advised to sing of squeal as loud as possible through our snorkel, it was like one big orgy!
We 've been so impressed with the south island and we're sure the north island won't disappoint, our next destination is "Windy Wellington", hopefully not too smelly and easier on the bums.
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