Queenstown

Hello from Queenstown!

We arrived here a couple days ago after a bus trip through some of the most gorgeous mountain scenery you will see anywhere on the planet. Rugged peaks, astonishingly blue lakes, amazing mountain wildflowers, it’s really stunning.

Queenstown is awesome, it’s situated on the edge of a mountain lake with mountains all around. It’s a major tourist town but also full of young people; there’s a couple big hostels here and there is a very active nightlife. Morgan and I got a really good room, with a guy from Montana and another from Scotland, and we all went out last night.

This is also the adventure sports capital of New Zealand, and we’ve been getting a good full dose of that as well. Wednesday we had a combo tour that was a mix of jetboating through river canyons (amazing, and exhilarating), a helicopter flight (awesome), luge rides (which they have a track for and sounds kind of stupid but is amazing fun, it’s basically Mario Kart), and a ride down the mountain gondola. Yesterday it was the Shotover Canyon Swing, which was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done but also a ton of fun – it’s a 70m freefall that’s followed by getting swung across a canyon. You have to jump off a platform, which is terrifying enough in itself without the guys who strap you in doing everything in their power to freak you out, bump you, etc. In keeping with a scene, the natural setting is amazingly beautiful.

Tomorrow we head back to Christchurch and have a Lord of the Rings Tour (we’ve been re-watching the movies as preparation) before heading to Sydney and the last leg of the trip before heading home. Back in Seattle in under two weeks!