Adventure Capitol of the World

We got to sleep in until 7 am today since our bungy jump was scheduled for 9:30 am. After having another delicious peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam sandwich for breakfast, we drove out over the mountains towards Queenstown. Megan was pretty nervous about bungy jumping and had told me that she would only do it if we could jump together. Once she told me that, I went ahead and reserved a time for the Kawarau Bridge bungy because that was one of the only places that let you do a tandem jump. Once we got there and were checking in, the woman convinced Megan to do it on her own since it is more of a challenge. After they weighed us and wrote our weights on our hands, we were off to the top of the bridge to jump.

We left our car keys and sandals on top of the bridge and then got into our harnesses. Then we had a few minutes to wait in line as there were 3 or 4 people ahead of us on the bridge. It was pretty windy and cold on top of the bridge and it made me glad I hadn't changed into shorts. When it was my turn then had me sit down at a lower platform that was thankfully sheltered from the wind. They wrap your legs together and then attach a cord from your legs to the bungy rope and a cord from your harness to the bungy rope. Then you waddle out to the edge where they count you down and then you are off.

It was awesome! I wanted to screaming "boost it" when I jumped but you are falling so fast that I ended up just yelling. You are going so fast it kind of takes your breath away. The sensation of speed is amazing. I had time to look down and around some before I hit the water. They had talked me into dunking my head. Unfortunately I jumped out and up instead of diving so I dunked even further then they intended. Luckily even though it was a somewhat chilly day, the sun was out and my shirt dried pretty quickly. I hastened up to the viewing platform so I could see Megan's jump.

Megan glanced over and then boosted her jump. From the way I saw it she did fine but she told me later that when they were moving her out, she told the guy she couldn't do it. The guy told her he'd count down from 5 and in her head she went I CAN DO THIS. Then when he got to 3, she decided she had to jump before he finished the countdown or she'd freeze, so she started jumping at 2.

After our bungy jumps, we got suckered into buying the pictures and DVDs (how many times are you going to go bungy jumping? don't you want documentation?). We picked them up and then headed on into Queenstown. On the way, we saw Amisfield winery and decided to take a quick wine tasting stop. We liked their wines and the guy pouring was form Chicago and talked to us a lot about how New Zealand wines differed from Napa and other areas in the states. We liked the wines and told the guy that we thought they were similar to Cakebread's wines. He laughed and said that the owner of Cakebread also owns Amisfield. Booyah to our ability to taste wines!

We drove into Queenstown proper and parked and headed in to an activities center. We didn't have anything booked until 5 pm so we wanted to see what other options there were. We decided we were going to go jet boating. We had done it once before in the North Island but we really enjoyed it and figured we'd give it another try. We had a few mishaps driving out to the location, but we ended up getting there in time still. This time was way more awesome than the time in the North Island. The boat went flying off at around 80 kph. They went through some really tight areas with rock cliffs on either side. They also drift through turns and pull 360s a lot.

After jet boating, we took a break from extreme activities and drove out to Arrowtown. It is a tiny village that has a lot of the historic store fronts and museums. We wandered around town. There was a self guided tour but they neglected to mention that you had to get keys to a lot of the places on the tour from the museum. We had already walked 15 minutes from the town center and we didn't have the heart to go back. It was really hot that day so we just walked to the various historic buildings. We lucked out at some of them because other people were there and got to go and see them. We then headed back into town and got some ice cream to cool off.


There was a fairly big Chinese population in Arrowtown during the gold rush days. The people of Arrowtown forced them to live in a separate portion of the village. While all the houses in Arrowtown were small, the Chinese houses would better be described as hovels. Some of them were 20 square feet and were set up like a lean to. It is amazing to me that they could live in such squalor.

We then headed back into Queenstown to the Skyline Gondola. We had booked luge rides and a dinner at the top. We took the gondola up. I can see why they have the dinner area where they do as it overlooks all of Queenstown and Lake Waktipu. We went up to the luge and decided that we would ride together the first time and then alternate luge rides so that we could take pictures of each other. We had hoped it was going to be real luge, but it was actually carts on wheels. It was still cool though. They bicycle style steering and you could actually get going dangerously fast. There are two courses, the scenic course and the ADVANCED course. We were planning on just doing the advanced course twice but they told us that your first ride of the day has to be the scenic course.

We got in and rode down together and then walked back up to plan out where we would get pictures of each other on the next run. I luged first and Megan took some pictures and video. Then I took the chairlift up and we swapped the camera so that she could go on her run. After our luge rides we headed into the dining area and got a drink while we waited for our seating time. It pays to check in as soon as you can because they seat you in order of check in. Since we were awesome and checked in first, they gave us the best seat in the house.


It had an okay view I guess. Best of all, we could each look outside instead of looking at each other. Since it was our honeymoon, they gave us complimentary champagne and then we started working on the buffet. There were tons of stations but we walked through the whole buffet to figure out our plan. In standard "eat for the cycle" form I decided I would have to eat a small portion of everything. I failed big time. There were two soups, 10 different fish dishes, 5 main courses and 5 sides, a big cheese, fruit and cracker plate, and an enormous dessert setup with ice cream and tons of small pastries and large cakes. The lamb and chicken main courses and the prawn sides were my favorites. What boggled our minds was how rude other patrons were at the buffet. While Megan was ladling soup into her bowl a woman pushed her way in front of her and was going to scoop her bowl into the soup. The worst was when we were getting cheese, a woman pushed her way in front of Megan and grabbed an enormous clump of grapes. It probably had about 200 grapes on it and she walked away with the whole thing. While we were shocked by what happened, a second woman pushed in and took the other grape clump! It was absurd. Luckily even though we weren't pushy we managed to get more than enough to eat and were thoroughly stuffed by the time we took the gondola back down to our car. After driving over the mountain once again, we were back home.

Glacier Walk Bear Grylls Style

Once again an early start. It is tough travelling for so long (I know stop whining) because you have to pack well. It was especially tough for us because we had to pack for tropical (fiji, barrier reef), spring weather (Melbourne), fall weather (Christchurch area) and then winter on the Fox Glacier.

We were bringing all our layers basically and Megan was super awesome and drove the first couple hours while I was useless and sleeping in the passenger seat. Luckily once she got tired I was ready to step in. The road from Wanaka to Fox Glacier goes through a bunch of mountains so unsurprisingly is windy and steep. Luckily, we were driving it so absurdly early in the morning that Megan saw the only other car driving that stretch and it let us make pretty good time.

We pulled in fifteen minutes late for our 8 am meet up, but they were cool about it and we managed to get fitted for all our gear pretty quickly. We had signed up for the all day ice climbing adventure. There is a lame "walk around the glacier" option, but the ice climbing only has 4 people to one guide and you also do ice climbing instead of just walking around. Obviously way more awesome. Once we were all set, we took the bus to the glacier area.

There is about an hour walk to the glacier on which our guide, Andy, explained what we would be doing and where we'd be going and also gave us a history of the glacier. I didn't realize that glaciers go through cycles of receding and growing based on the weather. Up until 2005, the glacier had been growing and now it is receding slightly. Once we got up to the glacier, we put on our crampons, harnesses and helmets and got out our ice axes.

Andy spent an hour or so teaching us how to walk on the glacier with crampons since it is way steeper than anything on which we were used to walking. Once he was confident we wouldn't fall to our deaths in ice fissures, we headed out to the first climb that he had in mind. He said that the glacier is constantly changing so something that might be a good climb one week might have collapsed another week which makes guiding tough. He found us a good spot to get started and set up ropes for us. He did a great job of teaching us; first he explained the theory of what to do and then he gave us a demonstration of how to climb. The whole time we were on the ice he was giving us tips and explaining different moves we could use in various situations.

After we were getting up and down the first set of routes he had set up, we ventured out a little further and he set up a second set of routes. These were significantly tougher as the first routes had been at an incline while the new ones were straight up and one had a lip that you had to climb up and over. We still powered through them and once we had each climbed the routes a few times, he announced that he had found a moulin, a hole caused by water runoff. We took a break to eat lunch while he set up the ropes for the hole.


After lunch we dropped down into the moulin and then climbed back up. It was awesome! Megan was worried about doing it at first, but once she dropped down, she was totally fine. We both climbed back out and were pumped about it. Then Andy said he had some serious climbs we could go to if we wanted. Luckily the other couple was awesome and agreed that we wanted to do them. We started walking and climbing up the glacier.

He said he knew of some sweet ice caves and after an hour or so we were able to find them. It was sweet walking through the caves, but a little disconcerting because he had told us how a lot of the glacier was unstable. We weren't huge fans of ice falling on our heads. He had also made sure to impress upon us that the ice boulders were very very heavy and that we shouldn't stand under them ever.


Afterwards, Andy found us a huge crevasse so we could drop down and climb back out. He set up the ropes again and I dropped in and started climbing. I did pretty well but towards the top, my forearms just gave out. I was so exhausted I had to wait for a while before finishing up the last bit. Afterwards, we all headed back. It was about an hour to get off the glacier and another hour to get back to our car. At this point we were all tired but we ordered a pizza to go, got gas and then drove back to Wanaka.

Dun - EEE - den

In order to give ourselves as little rest as possible, we had scheduled a bunch of stuff in Dunedin the day after we arrived in Wanaka. On paper it was about a 4 hour drive, but through good old American aggressive driving and creative passing, we did it in 3:15. Even so we had booked a 9 am tour, which meant leaving at 5 am and waking up at 4:30. F. Along the way, we encountered the largest fruit sculpture in New Zealand. Sadly, we didn't stop this time, but we noted the existance of the town of Cromwell. It would come in handy later.

Luckily Megan was a rock star and drove the last hour or so when I was too tired to keep on going. She had to deal with a ridiculously precarious road meandering its way up these cliffs leading up to Lanarch Castle, New Zealand's only castle. Ever. We got started on the self guided tour with a video purportedly of the history of the castle. Instead it just talked about how the family that purchased it 30 years ago repaired it and lived there. The castle had been in disrepair for a long while after the original owners lost it. I was disappointed to see them gloss over the real history and mostly focus on what they did.

After we finished up with Lanarch Castle, we backtracked into the center of Dunedin, called the Octagon. Surprisingly enough, it is shaped like an octagon with a bunch of shops and eateries bookended by some beautiful churches. We wandered around before heading down south to look at the train station. It is a beautiful building that is still in use today. We started to notice there that every time we mispronounced Dunedin, all the locals would repeat it with the correct pronunciation (shown in the title).


We started heading back to the Octagon, but along the way Megan noticed CADBURY WORLD. They have a tour and gift shop set up so you can see the chocolate being made (and buy it). We of course headed in. Sadly, on weekends, the factory isn't running so you don't get to see the people at work. During the week, there is an extended tour which really shows everything. Instead we got to see a movie and go through the factory where they showed up the machines and explained how they make the various chocolates. They also have the largest chocolate waterfall in the world which might have been the best part of the tour.

We left the factory just in time for it to start pouring. After taking a short detour to Vodafone to get another usb 3g modem for New Zealand so I could keep up with my internet fix, we windowshopped our way back to the Octagon. We had a 6 pm tour of Speights brewery and we tried to get into an earlier tour, but the douchebag (from Australia - I don't want to give New Zealand a bad name) wouldn't let us into the tour. Since we had time to kill and it was still pouring we got into our car to head to Baldwin St, the steepest street in the world.


It puts Lombard St to shame. It doesn't have any of that pansy "curves" or "switchbacks", just one street straight up. Clearly we had to drive up to the top and speed down, which Megan wasn't a huge fan of. After driving it, we decided to walk it as well. After little discussion we decided that driving it is a much better way of ascending. Once we were back at the bottom, Megan let me drive it one more time.


It was getting close to 6, so we drove back to Speights to get the tour. Even though we had the douchebag tour guide, it was still really awesome. They put a lot of work into having a good tour and it shows. We learned about the history of Speights beer and also the history of the site. They take you through all the different parts of the factory where they make beer. It even went through a hollowed out old cask. The best part of any is brewery tour though is that you get to taste beers at the end. We sampled 6 or so beers before the tour guide lied to us and told us another tour was coming through so he had to kick us out. We realized after we'd been duped that we were the last tour of the day.

After leaving the brewery, we decided we'd get food next door at the Speights restaurant. The food was pretty good but not exceptional. After getting food, we started driving back. We were a little under half full of gas so we were looking for gas stations leaving Dunedin, but we couldn't find any along the way so we just assumed we'd get gas on the road. After driving an hour or so and finally getting to a town that had a gas station, we realized that in New Zealand most gas stations close around 8 or 9. We must have gotten to this town right after they had closed. The bad part is that almost all of them also don't let you pay at the pump. As a result, we spent the next two hours searching for gas stations along the way. I had Megan get the laptop out and she looked up where towns were so that we knew about where we would have to call it quits so that we wouldn't run out of gas in the middle of no where. We got to a Mobil around 11 that claimed to have a 24 hr machine that took credit cards, but it was out of order.

We drove through a few semibig cities that had no gas stations open and we knew that Cromwell was our last chance. We had decided if we couldn't get gas we were going to have to find a hotel to sleep at that night. We had gotten directions to a gas station from google maps and we tried there, but it was closed as well. Megan noticed a hotel across the way and we pulled in there and she ran in to ask if there was a nearby gas station. Somehow it was the place to be on a Tuesday night with tons of people hanging out there. Luckily they pointed us to a BP that was open until midnight. We got there at 11:57! Woot to not spending the night in our car. After getting gas, we drove back home to Wanaka and passed out knowing that we had to leave the next morning at 4:30 am to get to the glacier in time for ice climbing.