BUNGEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

April 10 - Well, today was the day - Pete and the kids went bungee jumping for the first time.  They figured that since we were already near Kawarau, the birthplace of bungee, there was something of a historical element to it.  Whatever works for you, I always say.  Anyway, the day was chilly and the wait on the bridge for their turn was unfortunately long.  The company, AJ Hackett, has different strengths of bungee cord depending on the person's weight, and there were apparently a lot of light people there that day, so that made the whole system go a bit slower than usual.  But the system was really impressive - these guys have the technique down to a science, and the safety factor is impressive, even though they are pumping people through at a pretty good rate.

But I think that the best way to describe the experience for Pete and the kids is to show the photos and videos taken of their jumps.  These were all taken by the bungee company, and that is an impressive system as well.  The bridge was 43 metres high, and I think that all of their techniques were quite impressive. (On another blog, I will describe some of the more cringe-worthy jumps I witnessed during the day.) I cannot seem to upload the videos of their jumps right now but if you want to see them, let me know and I will send you the link once we download them to another website.

I think the photos speak for themselves.  A great time was had by all and discussions have already started about doing it again.  Oy. I was so proud of the way that they all took the plunge (literally) - they just stepped up and did it, and there was great excitement after each jump to support the next person.  Well done, crew!!

After the bungee adrenaline wore off, we started off on our way to our next - and unfortunately, last - stop of this trip, Twizel.  It is not only half-way to Christchurch, it also has a great Lord of the Rings Tour of the locations used for the Fields of Pelennor (Rohan and Gondor, to you LOTR fans).  We thought that this was a great way to end our trip - we started with a LOTR tour and we are ending with one.  A bit touristy, for sure, but I think it's going to be a blast!

I THINK THEY'RE ALL COMPLETELY CRAZY

April 9 - It's official - my family has finally exceeded the maximum allowable limits for bizarre.  Just when I think I have them nicely figured out, they end up completely baffling me.  We had a well organized day set out for us - we were going to enjoy some of the adventure activities for which Queenstown is justly famous, but nothing too adventurous, as some of our (OK, my) aged body parts just couldn't stand the strain.  Queenstown itself has been a real experience.  It is like Banff on speed.  Actually, in my opinion, it has all of the worst elements of places like Banff, Whistler and Aspen, with none of their redeeming charm.  It is a very youthful, backpacker kind of place, and the surroundings really reflect that.  The whole town is geared entirely toward adventure tourism, and the number of tour operators here is quite staggering.  This is very much a party town and the number of bars and pubs probably outnumber the permanent residents.  One of our guidebooks said to get out of Queenstown as soon as you could, and I completely understand that bit of advice now.  However, it is situated in a gorgeous spot, and we quite enjoyed touring the areas surrounding the town. (Photos again courtesy of Google images.)

The day started off with some luging - on concrete, of course, but just as cool.  Unfortunately, I was now under the weather so Pete and the kids headed off without me.  They took a gondola up the mountain to the track, and each had five races in their luging carts.  I am led to understand that there was quite a bit of competition (what a surprise) but that everyone managed to win some bragging rights over the others and a great time was had by all.

I managed to recover in time for us to head out for our afternoon's activity, ziplining at the site of the world's first ever bungee jumping at the Kawarau Bridge.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we found out that all of the ziplining spots were booked for that day and the next.  So what does my slightly insane family decide to do?  Sign up for bungee jumping, of course!!  All three of them are quite looking forward to it.  I opted to decline - my neck is bad enough as it is and I do not want to make it any worse so I will give this one a miss.  Although, I have to say, it does look like a hoot.  Anyhoo, it will be very interesting tomorrow to see all of this go down (so to speak).  I think my family are all completely crazy!!

HEY, DOES ANYONE ELSE HEAR THE THEME MUSIC FROM "JAWS"?

April 8 - Well, it serves me right for being hearty and active so early in the morning, it really does.  I was up very early this morning and everyone else was still asleep, so I decided to go for a walk on the beach.  We leave the coast today to go inland and won't be returning, so I thought one last look would be nice.  I was walking along, really enjoying the sunrise, the salty air and the sound of the pounding waves, when I thought I saw something that looked remarkably like a fin skimming along the top of the water.  As I stood there gawking, an older man walking his dog stopped beside me and said "Did you see that?"  At that point, I knew that I was not hallucinating and that there was probably a shark in the water.  I knew that there were sharks here, as there was a plaque on the walkway further up the beach commemorating the people who had been killed along that part of the coast by great white sharks.  There are also dedicated shark warning bells (yikes) along the beach.  As we stood watching, a large wave rolled up through which we could see, as clearly as anything, the shark swimming across the wave, right before it (the wave, not the shark) crashed over.  The gentleman said that he has been walking his dog on that beach every morning for 15 years and has never seen a shark there before, so that was quite a rare experience.  He told me that he was a retired fisherman, and that the shark was quite harmless to humans (I believe he said it was some kind of whale shark).  He called it in to the surf patrol anyway, however, because there were surfers in the water some way down the beach.  The surfers were in quite enough peril anyway, in my view - the waves where they were surfing were fairly high but were crashing onto some pretty scary rocks, so a bad ride would not end well at all.

The unfortunate part of this story, however, occurred because the older gentleman and I were so enraptured by what was in the water that we failed to pay any attention to where the water was actually going. Namely, up and over our shoes courtesy of a rather large rogue wave.  As I squished-squished back to the hotel, it dawned on me that someone should really make hiking shoes waterproof on the inside too.  After I managed to dry off and we had our breakfast, it was time to pack up and move on to our next destination, Queenstown.  It was going to be a fairly long drive today, so we wanted to get an early start.  This has been one of the things that I have had to get used to again  - when you are driving these very twisting, one-lane roads, it takes a lot longer to get anywhere.  Which is surprising, really, given that people here take hairpin turns at 100 km/hr without batting an eyelash.

En route, we stopped for lunch at Jimmy's, famous throughout New Zealand for its pies.  I have to say that the reputation is well deserved.  Although the pies must have been heated on the "nuclear" setting and burned off most of the skin in my mouth, the apricot pie was utterly delish.  This part of the country is basically like the Okanagan - there are orchards and wineries everywhere.  It is somewhat surprising, as it appears to be quite a dry area as well.  There were tons of fruit stands along the sides of the road, but given that it is now autumn, most of them were unfortunately closed for the season. (The orchard pictures are off Google Images, by the way.)

We arrived in Queenstown and Pete was unfortunately under the weather so the kids and I headed out to give him some peace and quiet.  We ended up at Vortex, a really neat place where you could play lazer tag or see some "12D" movies.  Naturally, I had to see what that was all about.  You actually had your own little theatre with 6 seats that moved along with the movie, for your own private "thrill ride".  Liam got the first pick and opted for a haunted house movie (a whole 5 minutes) which was actually really scary (well, to me, anyway).  It was awesome - the seats moved, air and water were blown across your face to simulate wind and rain, things reached out to grab at your feet at really intense moments.  It was so great that the kids twisted my arm and we saw four movies in total.  A roller coaster, alien sci-fi and a dune buggy race - they were all good.  We also got a great photo of a dinosaur attack - totally spontaneous, I assure you.  After that, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep for our (hopefully) adventurous day tomorrow.

THE HIPPY DIPPY WEATHERMAN AND THE BEST SMELLING TOUR EVER

April 7 - What a day in New Zealand!  It is officially autumn here and we are starting to see some signs of leaves turning and a little nip in the air.  Of course, it is the start of autumn in New Zealand but I have to say that I felt a little cheated when I had to put the shorts away in favour of jeans.  The weather on the south island is just a wee bit colder than it is up north.  Today's itinerary started with a great driving tour around the Otago Peninsula.  The scenery was absolutely incredible - steep rolling hills surrounded by the sea wherever we went.  It was an amazing coastal drive through small towns and a penguin sanctuary (although we did not see any penguins today).  We stopped off at a rocky beach so that Liam could indulge in one of his favourite pastimes - skipping rocks.  I believe his record is now 13 in a row (scary).  We sat and had lunch on a cliff overlooking the sea, and we joked that we were having a picnic with a million dollar view.  I am not sure that ham or peanut butter are actually fitting cuisine for a million dollar view, but it was spectacular nonetheless.  (The picnic table below was from another area, but we joked that the views here are so good that they only put benches facing toward the sea!)

As we drove along the coast, we passed a house that was so unusual that we just had to stop and take pictures.  Now, we would not have presumed to do that but there was a sign up that said "pictures welcome", so we presumed.  The owner, who has apparently been collecting driftwood off the beach for the past 7 years has decided to decorate his entire house with it.  The effect was jaw-dropping - he says that the town council has been trying to get him to clean it up (go figure) but I think it looks quite neat.  As I was taking pictures, the owner came out to talk to me and, man, what a character.  He was a wonderfully friendly person, but completely anti-government and obviously dedicated to an herbally-based lifestyle.  In fact, it turns out that we missed the police bust of his grow-op by about a week.  He was a complete 60's survival, but a real New Zealand character.

One of our lucky accidental turns (which we have had a lot of on this trip) took us to Allans Beach, which was a little way off the beaten path.  We parked the car and hiked through some fields to get to the beach, and we were forced to detour - twice - because a group of sea lions had chosen to sunbathe on the path.  We actually thought that the first one that we encountered was dead, it was so still, but it turns out he was just comatose.  They did not seem all that fussed by the presence of several humans, but I am sure that would have changed rapidly if we had gotten too close.  We had a great walk along the beach and then headed back for more touring.

The route we drove took us high up into rolling hills on really narrow, twisting roads.  There were steep hills on one side, and a very dramatic drop off on the other.  They don't actually bother with guardrails much on these roads, as they would apparently only serve to jolt you awake as you careened over the edge.  But the hills were blanketed with sheep (pardon the pun) by the thousands.  This was one of the biggest differences I found as compared to the north island - there are millions of sheep here, everywhere you turn.  I was surprised that there were so few up north (and so many cows) but the New Zealand wool and lamb chop industries are apparently alive and well in the south.  The only exception is in the fields immediately around Dunedin, for reasons which I will explain shortly.

Once our tour of the peninsula was done, we headed back into Dunedin.  This town, by the way, is very cool - it has a really interesting vibe to it.  Pete and I both agreed that in looks and feel it reminded us a lot of San Francisco.  One of its cooler aspects is that Cadbury's has its main factory there, and we felt we could not leave without a tour.  Because it was the week after Easter, the full factory was not operational as the production workers were on a two-week holiday (go figure).  But we could see the rest of the plant and it was by far the best smelling tour we have ever had.  We found out how chocolate actually gets made, saw a chocolate waterfall a la Willy Wonka, and got a bag with samples which was added to as the tour progressed.  Yum!  The reason that Cadbury put its main New Zealand factory here just after the turn of the century was the presence of a huge dairy industry around Dunedin.  Apparently, the milk from these cows gives the chocolate a little something "extra" in terms of taste.  After the tour, we took a look at the quite spectacular old train station in the middle of town.  Unfortunately, it now is host to a number of tourist offices and operators, but you could really imagine it during its heyday.  It would have been just amazing to see bustling with tons to travellers.  We finished off the day with dinner at Nando's, Siobhan's favourite eatery, and headed back to the hotel to pack up.

Well, that's about it for this blog post.  Tomorrow, we leave Dunedin and head inland to the town of Queenstown, which bills itself as "The Adventure Capital of the World".  My children are already making plans to participate in some of Queenstown's more adventuresome activities, so this should be interesting.....

WE END UP IN THE WEIRDEST PLACES....

April 6 – Yesterday was a fairly long travel day for us.  We had probably the best cab driver ever for our trip to the airport, an old Aussie who told us all about his family’s 4 ½ year trip around Australia in a caravan many years before.  What a character!  Our flight on Air New Zealand went to Auckland first, and we then had to catch a second flight to Christchurch.  We optimistically thought we could get some dinner after we cleared customs and passed through security, but we found ourselves in one of the only airports I have ever been in that has virtually no place to eat once you get to the departure lounges.   So we were a hungry crew when we got on the flight.  Thankfully, Air New Zealand is well stocked with snacks, so no problem!  They seriously have the best staff and entertainment that I have ever encountered on an airline, and if they flew within Canada, I would travel with them all of the time.  All of this travel really does broaden your perspective, though – it really brings home how great Pearson Airport is, and who thought I’d be saying that?

This morning, we headed off in our rental car to see some of the island.   We plan to spend a fair bit of time driving around and seeing the really varied landscapes that the south island has to offer.  We drove down the east coast first and most of trip was typical motorway views – lots of farmland on either side, the occasional view of the mountains to the west.  However, we stopped in the town of Oamaru on the coast for lunch, and it was possibly the weirdest stop we have had so far.   The town has some beautiful Victorian buildings down by its waterfront, and they have filled them with funky clothing stores, bookshops, coffee shops, etc.  Siobhan was in her element.  We had a fabulous lunch at the Star & Garter Pub (where their motto is “Friendly Food & Delicious Staff”) and wandered out to find something called “Steampunk HQ”, which is a museum/art gallery/conversation piece.  I am not even going to try to describe steampunk as a theme, and I strongly suggest that you Google it for an idea.  The closest I could come would be to describe it as Marvin the Martian’s post-Armageddon garage sale.  It was a really cool way to repurpose what was obviously an abandoned machine works, but it was just off-the-charts weird.  The kids, of course, loved it, although Siobhan feels that there may be steampunk nightmares in her future.  More disturbingly, Liam says he has finally found a theme for his room decoration – oy vey.  Liam had a great time playing the rather disturbing pipe organ - seriously, I kept expecting to hear "Phantom of the Opera".

One of the guidebooks that Pete has on his phone suggested taking a bit of a detour after leaving Oamaru, and we are so glad that we did.  We left the motorway for some much smaller roads and drove right along the coast, with some of the most beautiful views of the ocean.  It was an incredible coastal drive, although trying to see the scenery while twisting and turning on tiny roads is no mean feat.  We saw loads of ocean birds and a colony of penguins, who are actually found in fairly large numbers along the coast here.  We arrived at our destination of Dunedin to our beautiful character hotel by the ocean.   “Character”, however, usually denotes more than just good looks – it also means “no elevator”.   Pete boldly sacrificed himself and carried the heavy luggage up three flights of stairs.  The doctor says he should be fine once he gets out of traction.  The internet here is actually up and running (which is more than we can say for the last two hotels) so I am hoping that I can actually get some of these blog entries posted.  I will have to keep my fingers crossed!

MONTY PYTHON - IT'S A ZOO

April 4 – Today saw us making a pilgrimage to the spot that Siobhan has been waiting for this whole trip – the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  Yes, we have seen (and even cuddled) koalas before on this trip but I have it on good authority that you can never do that too often.  Lone Pine started back in 1927 to save what was left of the koala population in Australia after they were almost hunted to extinction for their pelts.  Thankfully, koala populations are doing much better today and the sanctuary currently has about 150 koalas in residence.  I would say something here about the sanctuary koalas tirelessly working to repopulate the species in the wild, but honestly, I cannot imagine them having enough energy to do anything, including procreate.  Seriously, as I mentioned before, only about 1% of their day is spent actually moving and most of their time is spent sleeping on tree branches in the most awkward positions imaginable.  I have included a special montage that I like to call “Comatose Koalas”.  I think you’ll enjoy it.

The sanctuary is home to a number of other species as well, so it actually took a lot of time to go through and see everything.  Liam got to cuddle a koala again (mostly by accident) and he and I both got to cuddle a rather large python named Monty (that is so corny it is almost clichéd).  There is a large enclosure where we went to feed the kangaroos and emus.  The kangaroos were quite funny – they were absolutely blasé about the presence of humans around them (even the fairly clueless parents who thought it was “cute” when their little darlings pulled the kangaroo’s tail). But as soon as one of the resident ravens came anywhere near the mob (group of kangaroos) the lookout kangaroo’s tail would thump the ground and the entire group would go on high alert.  It was really strange. We also got to see a falconry show that was quite spectacular (and a little gross, as the birds were given dead baby chicks and mice as “special treats” – eww.)  It was another day that was forecast to be rainy, but it was a lovely warm day.  However, prairie-girl was again sopping wet in the humidity and constantly fleeing to find air conditioning.  I wonder how long it would take me to get acclimatized, given that three weeks has apparently done nothing for my heat and humidity tolerance.  I may have to come back again to do some scientific research into this puzzling problem.

After we left the sanctuary, we headed back into Brisbane and toured through its art gallery and museum.  I love the fact that most museums and art galleries which we have visited so far have been free, apart from their special exhibits.  There was a modern art portion of the gallery which the kids really liked – their favourite seemed to be a music and video exhibition which, in my opinion, probably comes as close to an acid trip as you can get while remaining perfectly sober.  The three words that best describe it are as follows, and I quote: weird, weird, weird.  Bonus points to those who can tell me who I’m paraphrasing!! (Hint: No Christmas is complete without him.)

We had dinner at a really interesting restaurant called Jojos, which has a life-sized statue of Humphrey Bogart outside and a very eclectic menu (both of which for no apparent reason which I could discern).  We walked back to the hotel after we were done (stopping for some marvelous gelato on the way) to get packed and ready to leave for Christchurch in the morning.  Good-bye Australia – we really, really liked you!

THE EASTER BUNNY CONUNDRUM

April 3 – We left Cairns today and flew to Brisbane for the last leg of our Australian adventure.  Brisbane is just a short stopover (1 day) before we head back to New Zealand.  We arrived this afternoon to discover that Brisbane is pretty much shut down over the Easter weekend.  Everything was closed – including our hotel!  There was no one manning the front desk when we arrived and that did not change.  We were starting to make contingency plans for the night when we were finally able to call the hotel manager who gave us the code to a lockbox to get our key.  That information would have been just dandy to have before we got there, let me tell you.  Naturally, we were all starving and wanted dinner but it was pretty much a ghost town in the neighbourhood around the apartment.  Seriously, I saw tumbleweeds going by.

However, intrepid travellers do not allow little details like complete business closure to stop them on their journey so we set off into the center of town hoping for a bit of life.  We were rewarded when we found the Queen Street Mall (a few really cool pedestrian-only streets) which had some restaurants open.  While we were considering our options, the heavens opened for one of the only rainy portions of our stay here.  It was perfectly all right, however, because the mall had a very cool structure over top that kept out the rain (it looked like an enormous palm frond).  We just got to watch all the water coming off the roof in waves (there was a LOT of rain!)  Honestly, we have been so lucky with weather on this trip – they have repeatedly forecast lots of rain and (relatively) cold days on this trip but we have just managed to miss it all.  We have had wonderful weather virtually the whole time on this trip.

Anyway, after a somewhat dubious burger at Mos (apparently the #1 burger chain in Japan) we headed back to the apartment for a quiet night in.  I hope that there is something open in Brisbane tomorrow or this could be a most awkward visit.

AND WE'RE BACK!! (PART II)

April 2  - Day 2 of the forced march of family fun in Cairns saw us off on our tour of the Daintree rainforest.  It seemed like the middle of the night when we met the tour company’s rather imposing 4x4 out in front of the hotel, but that was probably only because we were all still wiped out from our exertions of the day before.  Our driver, Matthew, was absolutely hilarious and we learned a bunch of new Aussie-isms from him.  Such classics as “We don’t get drunk, we just get more fascinating” and “I’m so hungry that I could eat a horse and chase the jockey”.  His running commentary was not only informative, it was hilarious and if we were lucky, even a bit off-colour. 

Our first stop of the morning was a great drive up the coast with some lovely views of the ocean.  We stopped for a river cruise in crocodile-infested waters – yes, that was actually the draw.  Liam got to hold a baby crocodile, and it’s true, when they’re little, even the scary animals are cute.  In a way.  Anyway, our guide told us that we may not see much due to the high water from the recent cyclone, but we managed to see an older crocodile and a baby croc sunning itself on a tree branch.  The guide told us that only about 1% of crocodile babies make it to 2 years old, so we just nicknamed him “the one-percenter”.  This was a feature of this area of Australia that I had not properly appreciated.  There are a ton of crocodiles – there were warning signs about not swimming or even getting too close to the edge of the water in virtually every area which we visited.  I had wondered a bit about the beach which ran along the main road into town in Cairns and why nobody seemed to be on it.  Mystery solved.

After the croc-watching boat trip, we got back in the vehicle for another drive deeper into Daintree, where we headed off for a walk through the rainforest.  It was quite interesting to find out that many of the plants here are virtually unchanged from the plants which covered the area almost 280 million years ago.  Matthew knew a great deal about the local plants, including their Latin names (show-off).  I particularly liked the “Wait-a-While” plant (bottom picture below), so named because once you get ensnared in one of its long tendrils, you simply cannot get out.  Seriously, this stuff is really nasty – there was a story about a girl getting the skin peeled from her arm like a banana by this plant, but since this is a family blog, I will skip the gory details.  Other than the threats of imminent danger from the local flora, the walk through the forest was absolutely beautiful.  We were also incredibly lucky and got to see three cassowaries in the forest.  It is apparently quite rare to see even one, so that was a real treat.

After the walk, we went off to an animal rescue centre for lunch (and no, that is not as sick as it sounds).  While lunch was cooking, we got a chance to feed kangaroos and wallabies.  These were all animals who had been injured or abandoned but were not able, for whatever reason, to return to the wild after they had healed.  It was such a great experience and a real opportunity for the kids to interact with animals they would not otherwise get to see in such close quarters.  We left there to visit a rather spiffy creek in the forest, where most people on the tour (including Pete and the kids) ventured in for a dip.  This made me a bit nervous, given that the crocodile warning signs were present a little bit further down the creek, but I figured that the crocodiles would probably head straight for the meatier American tourists first, so no problem.  I had decided that I would rather stay dry after being immersed in water most of the day before, but ironically the heavens decided to open up with a torrential downpour while everyone was in the water and it was a close call as to who was wetter when it was done.  Naturally, that was the only time that it rained all that day!

While we were there, Matthew and another tour guide prepared a selection of exotic fruits for us to try.  These included papaya, pineapple, lychees, and these really amazing fruits called custard apples.  Once we were done with afternoon tea, we headed off for another drive further north to Cape Tribulation, named by James Cook after he managed to crash his ship on the reef there.  It was an interesting area – it bills itself as the place where the reef meets the rainforest, and it’s true.  You could literally have one foot on the dirt and one foot on the sand and be standing in two separate World Heritage sits at the same time.  We took a quick walk on the beach and were stymied as we came across piles of sand which were scattered all over the beach which looked, quite frankly, like piles of worm poop.  Surprisingly, we were not really wrong about that.  It turns out that there is a worm which inhabits the beach which is about the circumference of your thumb and about a metre long.  It burrows into the sand by eating it on the way down, and then passing it out of its body through the hole back on to the beach.  So, worm poop.  There were also these very tiny balls of sand scattered in neat patterns around holes in the sand which are made by crabs burrowing in, rolling up the sand in their mouths and literally tossing the sand balls back on to the beach.  This was much more arty than the sand worms, but not nearly as cool as being able to say they were poop.

Anyway, after a brief stop at an ice cream factory on the way back (which served some very oddly flavoured ice cream, I am advised) we made the long drive back along miles and miles of sugar cane fields back to Cairns.  We are off again tomorrow to Brisbane for a short visit and a tour of the koala sanctuary.  This should be great for more Kodak moments!