After leaving Franz Josef we headed to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand, or some call it the Adventure Capital of the world, and for good reason. This small alpine city is similar to both Whistler and Banff and is a lot of fun. It is surrounded by four ski resorts and sits right next to New Zealand's third largest lake, making for a very picturesque place. It has great downtown streets lined with small shops of all kinds and fantastic restaurants and bars. We spent 4 nights here but I could easily see myself in a place like this for months without being bored. The reason it's called the Adventure Capital is because you can literally do anything here which will thrill you, excite you, or just plain old scare the crap out of you. There are three bungy sites around the town, you can go Sky Diving, Jet Boating, White Water Rafting, River Surfing and Sledging, Hang Gliding and Paragliding, Street Luging, Canyon Swinging, Parasailing, Snowboarding and Skiing, Heli-Skiing, ride in the RedBull stunt Bi-Plane and pull 6 G's, Helicopter Tours, etc. etc. there are many more but not enough time to mention them. Nicola and I had never planned on doing a bungy jump but it is part of this town, literally this is where the first commercial bungy site was created and so many people have done it before. We visited the bridge where it all started and that night I decided that taking the plunge wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Nicola and I did a tandem bungy from the Kawarau Bridge, 143 feet above the river and fell right to the bottom, I even dunked my head in the water. It was a lot of fun, and we are really glad we did it. However I had a bit of a sore neck for a day and Nicola had a couple of small blood vessels in her eye burst, along with some sore ankles. We decided this wasn't a thrill we'd likely repeat, as much fun as it was. The next crazy stunt for us would be a day of Jet Boating and Canyon Swinging, unfortunately though the Jet Boat got cancelled due to high river levels. If the boat had gone through it is supposed to be a blast, driving up the canyon not much wider than the boat itself going break-neck speeds. The Canyon Swing was the funnest and craziest thing either of us had ever done and I have to say it was my favorite day in New Zealand so far. You go to a platform 360 feet above the river below on the edge of a steep canyon wall and jump off. You freefall for 200 feet and then smoothly go into a pendulum swing which takes you down another 100 feet and horizontally whips you across the canyon going 150km/h, after swinging back and forth a few times you get winched back up. All you can think is, "Let's do it again!" and that is exactly what we did, 3 times actually. The beauty is that you can launch a different way every time. Without going on it too much detail I will say that both Nicola and I did fall backward over the edge of the platform while seating in a Lawn Chair, only to plummet backwards and do backward flips just feet from the canyon wall, an amazing rush for sure. You can check it out at http://www.canyonswing.co.nz/
From Queenstown we made a day trip to Milford Sound on the west coast of the South Island. This is one of 14 huge fiords carved out by the last Ice Age. It's difficult to describe the beauty of this place and even photographs do no justice...plus the internet cafe is about to close. When you pull into Milford you go on a cruise that runs up and down either side of the fiord and allows you to enjoy it first hand, it's quite incredible.
After the day in Milford sound we did a day long tour of the Catlins region in the very south of the South Island. This was also an incredible day, despite it being very wet out we saw a lot of incredible scenery in addition to some very rare and interesting wildlife.
The Glacier cut cliffs of Milford Sound, which is actually a Fiord not a Sound
Queenstown with the Mountains in the background
