Queenstown

Queenstown started out as New Zealands own version of Aspen. It was born to cater to the skiers but soon became much bigger as a summer destination full of "extreme" activities like Bungy Jumping, Skydiving, Jet Boating and a whole bunch more variations on the theme. Of course with that comes the night life and so Queenstown has basically become a 24 hour party. I spent 3 nights there but only one day because we arrived late on the first day and I was in Milford Sound during the second day.The one day I did spend in town was somewhat uneventful because it was raining. I had planned to go jet boating which consists of piling a group of people into a very fast speed boat and having a pilot zip us down a river. A nice combination of excitement with a lack of personally assumed risk. I wanted to take it back down a notch after the bungy jump, but the rain was bad enough to cancel most outdoor activities for the day so jet boating was out.

(A Tuatara)
None the less I did manage to accomplish one of my goals. I finally saw a Kiwi Bird. They are extremely hard to see because they are skittish, nocturnal and ridiculously endangered due to the fact that they have almost no defense against any form of predatory mammal. Obviously the arrival of the Europeans did not go well for them. At the wellington zoo the Kiwi was was impossible to see under a single red bulb where it was likely hiding in it's burrow. And the bird sanctuary I had toured a week earlier had been fruitful for seeing every local bird except the Kiwi. I do have to wonder how many actual New Zealanders have ever seen a kiwi at all, never mind in the wild.Lucky for me, just up the hill from my hostel there was a Kiwi Experience reserve. They raise Kiwis to release into designated safety areas but they also have some there to be seen. It is also a darkened room with a red bulb, but they had done a much better job building a habitat that allows the audiences to see them while being considerate of the animals comfort. It was a bit pricey but the admission also included a show which consisted of a talk by some of the handlers followed by a Maori Culture show.The handler talk was fantastic although some might have found it a bit academic. I liked it a lot. The handler brought out some lorikeets (a lot like parakeets) and a live Tuatara, which I got to check out up close. If you don't remember the Tuatara, go back to the last part of the entry "Wellington prt 3." The Maori culture portions was unbelievably sad and cheesy. I wanted to bail but I was sitting in the front and the audience was small. I would have been noticed. By the time they tried to goad us into a Maori language version of the Hockey Pokey I had become embarrassed for the performers and all the more grateful for the show I had seen in Rotarua.

(A Street Performer on the Boardwalk)
So of course the more eventful part of my time in the big Q was the night time activities. The evening we arrived our bus driver for that leg, Trent organized a pub for us to meet up at. So at 8:30 we gathered at the Red Rock. There were many Magic Bus riders from my coach as well as several who had arrived in the past few days. The Red Rock was apparently the "IT" place to start the evening. Of course the evening never ends where it begins and a whole passel of us ended up at the Altitude Lounge for karaoke night. Allan a Scottish business student immediately signed up for a song and with admittedly very little goading I committed to a song myself. I pulled out the one song I know I can do well, Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. I do it well because I have a surprising ability imitate Sachmo's voice. Laugh all you want, I killed. Kris was at the back of the bar when I went on and when i saw him later he had to ask if I had sung at all or if they had played a vocal track. For my efforts I won a free beer and a Malibu Rum mini skirt. I immediately made use of one and gave the other away. You can figure out which for yourself.For some reason Allan's song came up four tunes after mine and by then he had rounded up a contingent of seven, including myself to help him sing the proclaimers "I would walk 500 miles." For those who don't know it it requires a thick Scottish accent to be sung properly. So I never used my own voice on stage that night.Night Two also started at the Red Rock just as Night Three would.

(The Queenstown Waterfront at Dusk)
Night two started after my return from Milford Sound. I met up with everyone at the the Red Rock again. My timing was good because I had just missed out on some games between the Magic Bus riders and the competing Kiwi Experience passengers but I did arrive in time for the free drinks that followed. From there it was off to the World Bar in the center of town. It's a basic bar with an area for dancing and some loungey areas to kick back in. Their one big hook is the teapots. You can get mixed drinks served in a teapot which makes for easy sharing. A few teapots made the rounds between me, Maaike and Sue. I struck up conversations with some more new people before going dancing for the rest of the night

(The World Bar)
The third and final night started the same way. I met up with Allan the Drunken Scot (as we had now dubbed him) as well as his mates Aron and Marcus, an Aussie named Sonya and two dutch girls including a painter with the very cool name of Maria Mink and an even cooler blond afro. We headed out to a "salsa" night at a bar which I never got the name of but it was over crowded and the music wasn't salsa. They were playing Ricky Martin and Shakira. I'm sorry but that simply will not do. So we went back to the world bar were we stayed much to late while the Scottish contingent was fairly unsuccessful and chatting up the girls.
I squeezed in just a little sleep before hoping the bus for Dunedin the next morning. Three wild days was incredibly fun but I was glad it was time to switch the pace again.

(A Drunken Teapot)

If A Milford Fjords In The Woods, Does That Still Make It A Sound?

I'll leave Queenstown for my next entry. The day after my Bungee I took a day trip out of Queenstown to an area called Milford Sound which in fact is not a sound at all but a Fjord and part of New Zealand's Fjordland National Park.

It's actually quite a lengthy bus trip for a short cruise around the sound, but the scenery is dynamic for long sections and at other times I was able to catch up on some much needed rest (as I said I'll get back to talking aboutQueenstown later).


On the way in we stopped at the scenic town of Te Anau where you can get snacks while admiring a large plaster bird and at Monkey Creek which is fed by a glacier. You can actually fill your water bottle with pure cold and most importantly safely drinkable glacial water. I also love the name. After that we passed through a valley which was used in Jurassic Park 2 (the only movie location I've seen in all of New Zealand that wasn't from Lord of the Rings or any other Peter Jackson film).


(from Jurassic Park 2)

(into the Fjord)

There isn't much to say about Milford Sound itself except how beautiful and indescribable large it is. Even the pictures can't show you how small you feel in there.
The Sound is also one of those places that gets lots of rain so of course they chat up how it's better to see it in the wet weather because the run off creates spectacular waterfalls that aren't there when it's dry, but I think I got the best of both because the rains stopped early in the morning leaving onlyoccasional hints of drizzle during the cruise and lots of waterfalls.

(where the fjord meets the sea)

In the last length of our circuit we pulled up next to a seal colony. I know it's my third one already but I can't get enough of them. It's not like we get to see them laying about on cherry beach in Toronto. I think it's amazing seeing animals like these living free in their own world.

By the way, this is the last you will see of my red jacket. I lost it on the bus on the way back to Queenstown.

Bungeeee!

I swear I'm not trying to give you all heart attacks. It's just that Queenstown is New Zealand's de facto capital of extreme sport rides and as the next stop on the magic bus trail the game was rigged from the start. Magic Bus has partnerships with tourist attractions all over New Zealand which does result in some pretty good deals and opportunities. Unusually they just chat it up a little and offer a sign up sheet for those who want in. This one in particular was a little more blatant.

The drive to Q-town is nearly eight hours including breaks so people were getting restless when we stopped just outside town at the A.J.Hackett Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump. Where we were taken to the "Bungy Theatre" for a quick sales pitch followed by a short film in the tradition of your classic time share sale. It was actually too annoyingly hard sell for me.

Of course you're asking, "Why did I do it?" Well I "hemmed" and "hawed" about it for quiet a while so there was time for me to get used to the idea while several people off our bus went ahead of me but I was already tempted by the idea andQueenstown seemed the place to do it. Still I chose this opportunity because not only was it the original, not only were we already there, but A.J.Hackett in particular has a total of ZERO mishaps. No fatalities, no injuries, no one even getting sick. At least not during the jump, I'm sure there has been somepre and post nausea.

And yes this is actually THE original bungy jump. Initially they were only given a 30 day license (maybe it was 60, I forget now). The government figured no one would go for it but of course now it's everywhere.

Before you jump you're ankles are wrapped tight in a towel which is then wrapped in a harness. A back-up harness goes around your waist. You're trussed up in a near fetishistic manner by the time you approach the ledge. It's a very weird feeling and different than skydiving. Firstly you have to make yourself jump, that's pretty tough. They help to get you going because after telling you to wave to the crowd and wave to the camera they quite unexpectedly start barking out a countdown from 5. I think I jumped on 3, I certainly didn't hear 2 or 1.

When I did the whole landscape in front of me vibrated for a moment. I realized my head was shaking but then i got it together and enjoyed the ride down. Surprisingly, there is no point where you are jerked back. Thebungy eases your descent gently like someone who is very good at braking a car, but straight downward.

Than you fly back up ... twice, which is quiet cool. On the second I managed to spread my arms, arch my back and get a perfect little moment of zero gravity. In the end I think the hardest part was grabbing hold of the pole that they use to fish you into the dingy at the bottom. Admittedly it's stupid but quiet a thrill.

The photos (except for the first 2) were taken by Maaike a lovely, friendly and always entertaining girl from the Netherlands.

Into The Blue World

The dirty little secret of the south Island is they get a lot of rain, especially in certain areas. For instance Franz Josef gets rain in varying amounts about 200 days a year, and it's not something they go out of their way to advertise. So I was a feeling perturbed and unsure the morning of my big glacier hike.

The weather had been perfect the day before and I was starting to wonder if I would have been smarter to do the half-day hike right off the bus. The morning forecast was for rain and lots of it. They had already cancelled the helicopter tours and ice wall climbing for the day. But I had pre-paid and unless they cancelled the hike I figured it would be hard to get my money back. Between that and the fact that I knew I would regret missing the opportunity I decided to let my hand be forced and barrel ahead.

Before we got underway we were given boots, over-pants, waterproof jackets, hats and crampons. Crampons are the spikey shoe souls you see mountain climbers wear. They fit onto your boots like those strap on roller skates from the 1950's.

The skies were grey and threatening as we took the coaches out to the car park at the entrance to the glacier but as we started walking the sky brightened. It wasn't a crisp blue but it was much better than daybreak had implied.

(The Terminal Assertion)
Glaciers are massive. This was a small one and yet it's still so big it's hard to get a clear perspective on it. As you begin to walk toward it, it looks like the terminal assertion (where the bottom edge of the ice touches the ground) is about tens minutes away. Almost forty minutes later you arrive and your finally ready to begin the ascent.

A glacier is basically a river of ice moving in extreme slow motion. Ice is produced at the top and flows downhill, or rather it's pushed down by the new ice forming above. As it comes down it drags rock from the valley walls on either side as well as cold air, so walking on the glacier is actually a little bit colder than being on the valley walls beside it.
The guide companies actually cut stairways into the ice with pickaxes, but because the face is ever shifting they actually keep refining and redigging the steps as they go. It still can be steep so it's not like climbing the stairs at the office but it really helps.

At least that's how it works for the first half of the journey. The stairs go up about as far as the half-day hikers go after that they don't bother and you have to just learn to negotiate the terrain. Two things are working toward you advantage at this point. Firstly all that climbing of ice stairs gives you time to get used to walking on ice and using crampons. Secondly the grade actually gets a little less steep.

(For some perspective look at the ridge a little left of center. That was the group ahead of ours)
This was also the point where the ice got a lot bluer. Mainly because it was newer ice and it had not dragged as much rock and dirt across the glacier face.

Lunch was just off Franz Josef's "True Right" (your right if you are looking up at it from the bottom). If you ever hike a glacier think about this; Where do you go to the bathroom in the midst of untamed nature when there are no trees? Remember you are out for 8 hours and you need to keep hydrated, it will come up. Suffice it to say turns where taken.

Once we hit the upper level I saw some incredible shapes. The ice did majestic things and all in unreal shades of blue, but I think the picture can tell that story better than I can do it in words.

One of the entertaining moments was passing through a crevace so tight that not only did we have to take off our backpacks, but our guide had to take off his radio harness.

(The Crevass)
Unfortunately everything turned around at the same time we did. The rain hit gently at first and it never got too bad but it was unrelenting. The trek down got more risky. We were already tired, dower from the rain and the paths we had come up were now turning into channels for water to run down as well as small sliding rocks.

I must have given my knee a light twist at some point because it was getting sore with every time I had to step a little harder.

By the time we got down even the most chipper of us was getting pretty miserable and it was casting a shadow on the day.

It was unfortunate to end the day on such a down note but then I reviewed the pictures. It did a lot to erase the discomfort of temporary wetness. In the end I was glad I'd seen it.