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Milford Track Hello again, It's time for another mass email from me so buckle your seatbelts and get ready for a wild ride. First off, it's great to hear back from so many of you, and I will try to send individualized emails when I'm not busy jumping off cliffs or staring at waterfalls. Secondly, the recipient list has now been refined and you are part of an elite group - I really do want to hear about your adventures or water-cooler gossip. I arrived back in Queenstown a few days ago after hiking the Milford Track, which is promoted as "the finest walk in the world." As I haven't done every walk in the world, let alone a full-day hike in the last 5 years, it would be difficult to confirm or deny the statement, but it certainly appeared to be true. Of course, carrying 40 pounds of backpack 35 miles and up 4000 feet of mountain after 5 years of hiking inactivity left me bruised, sore, tired, and generally immobile. I have also achieved a new level of loathing for sandflies. Nevertheless, the hike was fantastic. Highlights included multitudes of waterfalls (20+ waterfalls visible from certain points), walking along rivers in valleys surrounded by 5000 foot cliffs, views from Mackinnon Pass, swimming in glacial lakes (for about 8 seconds), and kayaking Milford Sound. Additional entertainment was provided in the form of Keas (mountain parrots) opening backpack zippers and hunting for food or objects to throw that make noise. As words are insufficient to describe the superlative views, I will stop here and attach a link to photos (unfortunately, I was too slow to get a Kea in backpack picture). I have tried to show restraint in choosing photos to share, but I took over 150... http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b35fe665c407 I have spent the last few days in Queenstown river boarding, canyoning, and recovering from physical exhaustion. For those that don't know, river boarding is an activity that entails taking a boogie board down river rapids. In the case of me and my fellow river boarders, it felt like we were kicking pointlessly and being mashed together as we tried (sometimes successfully) to avoid the biggest rapids. On the second run down the river, we had a little bit of control and were able to ride a standing wave (very cool!), submerge our boards and ride squirts (bring on the jokes...) 20 meters down the river in about 2 seconds, swirl in eddies, and still get completely thrashed on the bigger rapids. All in all, good fun! Yesterday, I went canyoning for the day, and while river boarding was fun, canyoning was awesome! We hiked up a canyon, ran off a cliff (attached to a zipline, fortunately), rappelled, jumped into waterfalls, froze and shivered, slid on our backs and stomachs, and had a great time! Tonight I see the Return of the King (Lord of the Rings part 3 in case anyone actually doesn't know), and am very excited, as is all of New Zealand, as evidenced by the 50 meter high characters in Wellington downtown I keep hearing about. Tomorrow will bring luging (go-carting down a hill way too fast), and Sunday I will head to Wanaka and up the west coast to see the glaciers and national parks around Nelson and Marlborough (possibly going to Christchurch between Christmas and New Year’s. Also looking for an intro whitewater kayaking course at some point in New Zealand, probably in Nelson. I may actually make it out of Queenstown without doing a bungy jump (this would be quite an accomplishment, considering the marketing and extreme culture here. Queenstown has been quite interesting from a sociological perspective, as all the extreme sports dominate the town. It is common to talk to a friend about their parasailing experience, to be interrupted by another person bragging about how they did something crazier like bungy jumping or skydiving that day, to soon finding a complete stranger feeling the need to top everyone else by having jumped off all 3 standard bungies plus the highest bungy. Mentioning dumb boarding school activities like hyperventilating and having someone push on your chest to make you pass out (yes, people really did do this in high school) has allowed me to remain "cool" without jumping out of a plane or off a bridge in this town. Lucrative business ideas that fellow hostelmates have come up with include getting people to pay to enter a room with a few big guys and get the crap beaten out of them...very promising. Again, it's great to hear from so many of you, and I hope to meet up with you in New Zealand, Asia, Europe, or in the distant future when I return to the US. I will try to send out personal emails when I get a chance.
Cheers, |