Queenstown, NZ- The Thrillogy, Pt 1

Our first full day in Queenstown, NZ, the adventure capital of the world, consisted of "The Thrillogy"- RiverSurfing, Shotover Jetboating, and the Canyon Swing.

Part 1: Riversurfing
We suited up and grabbed a boogie board for a ride down the whitewater to surf a rapid. It was some Serious Fun and JinStreme's favorite part of the day.

LOTR: The Trilogy

Loyal readers, this is the moment you have all been waiting for...the reason anyone ever travels down under.


New Zealand- home of Peter Jackson, WETA, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Our first day in Wellington, we went 'on location' to various spots including where Frodo and Sam ran from the Ringwraiths, where Aragorn and King Theoden of Rohan assessed their troops, and the doomed Helms Deep. JSP even got the chance to battle a few Orcs with Bilbo's dagger, Sting.

Wellington or San Francisco?

Does this scene look familiar? Wellington is another city by the bay- just like SF.

Heaps of Sheep and Rugby players

Did you know there are 4 million people in all of New Zealand and 40 million sheep? We captured this embarrassing moment for one of them...

We don't know how many rugby players they have, but we were driving around on a Sunday and stumbled across this high school match.

Onwards to Akaroa and the Banks Peninsula

There wasn't much else to do in Christchurch after about 24 hours... so we rented a car and drove south to the Banks Peninsula. Wineries, dairies, and many, many sheep dotted the countryside between sleepy harbor towns. Jeff even got to drive on the wrong side of the road again.

Kitsch in Christchurch

A slice of Kiwiana in Christchurch-
We visited a relocated house fully decorated with paua shells. No two shells are alike and you can also harvest blue pearls from these mollusks. The couple (Fred and Myrtle) that owned this house got so famous, they were chosen as spokespersons for the local bread company.


http://www.newzealand.org.nz/fred_and_myrtle.htm

Chasing Waterfalls

With apologies to Left Eye Lopez and T-Boz, we eschewed their advice and chased ourselves some waterfalls.

We went from underwater to under waterfalls in the wet tropics of Queensland. Click on the video to see what Jeff wanted to do but never happened.



Can you find 3 blobs of clotted cream in this picture?

The Wet Tropics

Great Barrier Reef

The #1 underwater crime fighting team was back in action. We put our PADI certification to good use and scuba-d in the Great Barrier Reef. We saw giant clams, colorful clown fish and even sharks! (can you see the little guy in the picture?) The best part was that the water was warm enough that we didn't need wetsuits.

Brazilian?

You be the judge.

This could be the making of a new game...

Queensland- Beautiful and Deadly

Everything we read about Australia reminded us that we were among the deadliest snakes, scorpions, spiders, ocean life, and plants in the world. See if you can see the python coiled in this tree in Palm Cove- someone pointed it out as we were walking down the street with our ice cream cones.

Exotic Fruits- much better than Durian

Exotic fruits have redeemed themselves- here JSP holds up (and will later eat) a type of custard apple and a dragon fruit. For those of you who recall her extreme distaste for that other exotic fruit, durian, check out Andrew Zimmerman's reaction.

Western Australia

Great beaches (and surfing) in Perth, Western Australia.

Neither of us had been in the Indian Ocean - very nice.


Watch out for those snakes!