Queenstown Rocks!!!

The pictures are slightly out of order, so we'll start at the top and work down...!!! This is NOT from Queenstown - we're now at the Fox Glacier and hoping to go on a glacier walk tomorrow (if we don't get washed out!). We went on a walk through the rainforest to the Franz Josef glacier this afternoon, and - IT RAINED! A lot. So you'll have to take our words for it that somewhere in the cloud over our shoulders is the bottom of the glacier as it meets the river valley!



So, back to Queenstown where we spent the previous four days this week. It was wonderful to have one base for a few days, and after two nights in the tent (one of which was spent with rain dripping through the roof!) we treated ourselves to a motel room! So what craziness we have been up to! Hurrah!
As soon as we arrived we made use of our tent's proximity to the gondola to go up to the luge and spend another afternoon whizzing down the track with amazing views over Queenstown!! The next day we went river surfing, which is pretty much like white-water rafting, but without the raft. We thought we were in for some light exercise, but this actually involved us body boarding along a 12km stretch of the river through grade 3 and 4 rapids (Niagara Falls is Grade 6!). It was exhausting! Unfortunately we don't have any photos of this, well apart from one of us in our wetsuits, but we didn't think we'd inflict that on you!



Sarah went paragliding off Coronet Peak, which is the highest mountain above Queenstown, and after a slightly bumpy take-off had some beautiful views for miles around. But it wasn't quite exciting enough so.......



Yes, this is Sarah! After everything she said about NOT doing a bungy jump. It was BRILLIANT!



RocketDan!!! (Should be hummed to the tune of Elton's classic)
As seen on Jack Osbourne Adrenaline Junkie, this was 'Fly By Wire'. Daniel decided it would be a good idea to be strapped in to a rocket and whinched up one side off a 60m high valley. Once released he whizzed propellor-powered across the 400m-wide canyon to the other side and then flew around for the next five minutes, getting higher and higher!
It was awesome like riding a motorbike at 170 kph (110mph) up and down a mountain without roads!!!



And this is us on the Shotover Jet. (We're in the back row, and Daniel's the one having all the fun!) This was brilliant too, as we sped along the Shotover River at about 80kph (50 mph) in a jet boat, just missing the rocks at the side and at points theough water that really should have been too shallow! Awesome 360 degree turns meant we got a little bit splashed but had lots of fun!

So, fingers crossed for the glacier walk tomorrow - and then we start our journey back to Christchurch for the flight home on Thursday. Boooo. :-(