Shawn & Scott’s New Zealand Blog
Experiencing New ZealandArchive for February 10, 2008
New Zealand’s Biggest Lugers
(pronounced Luush-ers)
Sunday, February 10th
After a normal night sleep, some much needed rest, and a quick bite at a local cafe’ Shawn and I trekked to Bowen Peak via the Ben Lomond track (elevation 1748 m) with a new Irish friend and a psychiatrist from Berkley, California that we met along the trail. The original idea was to take the gondola to the summit; however after the awareness of a tail that led to the top, we decided to test our fitness a bit. It was steep hike with loads of rocky terrain, but totally worth it. After claiming victory over Bowen Peak, we made our way to the Skyline Luge and quickly purchased 5 rides.
The Luge was massively fantastic and it’s excitement was only exceeded by its beautiful view of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu, and the surrounding mountain ranges. The Luge can be best described as a ‘choose your own adventure,’ go kart-type race course, commandeered atop of a wide-bodied skate-board with handlebars. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Shawn to set the tone and it was race time!
The Skyline Luge’s slogan is “Once is never enough!” This could not be more true. After our first pass, we boarded the chairlift and engineered our way through the advanced course full of sharp embanked turns and drop off areas which leave you airborne at times. After our 5 passes and no injuries (thankfully) we enjoyed the sunny 75 degree weather and watched the other adrenaline enthusiast bungee jump and paraglide.
Overall an awesome day in Queenstown.
Cheers,
Scott
Welcome to New Zealand!
Saturday, February 9th 2008
We arrived safe and sound in Auckland around 7:15 am and took a 2 hour connector to Queenstown and arrived around Noon. Queenstown is a beautiful town about the size of Oconomowoc, WI (15,000 pop.) nestled between jagged mountains and right off Lake Wakatipu (83 km in circumference). It is really remarkable to look out of our window to see such a dramatic landscape. In fact, the mountain range to the west of us was called the Remarkables, definitely not just a clever name. The entire community is built around the Lake and consequently carved into the mountainside, which makes for very hilly walks into and out of town.
After checking into the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown and going for a quick run, we showered up and made our way into town in search of some authentic New Zealand cuisine. What we found left much to be desired.
The remainder of our afternoon consisted of scoping out what activities we were going to fill out time with while visiting Queenstown. So far on the list includes: rafting, river surfing, and jet boating. Another attractive option includes going at one of these mountainside trails on our own. We’ll keep you posted on what we decide.
Note: The sun in the Southern Hemisphere is markedly more intense than any solar experience we know of in the North. We haven’t been enlightened fully on the cause of this. Aboriginals maintain that a meteor caused it centuries ago, but they’re still painting their faces, killing their food, and dancing around to bring rain, much like Wikipedia, they’re hardly a credible source. But it really is no joke, even at average temps, one can burn quite easily here.
Cheers,
Scott & Shawn
Shortest day ever
Friday, February 8th 2008
Strangely enough our Friday (as we experienced it) only lasted about 2 hours. Since we traveled from Los Angeles to New Zealand (westward), we traveled across the International Date Line and pretty much missed Friday all together. It’s OK though because we get to double up on Saturday on the way back to the States.
Buses, Planes, and Automobiles
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Shawn and I rendezvoused in the illustriously busy O’Hare airport in Chicago on Thursday afternoon after each of us caught the first leg of our trips (his from Milwaukee and mine from Baltimore). The first notable story of the trip came midway through our flight from Chicago to Los Angeles (total flight time of 4 hours and 28 minutes). We were aboard one of the long 757’s with close to 60 rows and sitting in coach.
This being our first leg of the trip, we were infused with excitement and not thinking about sleep (yet). Shawn brought multiple DVD’s of Kung-Faux, which if you’re unfamiliar (like I was), imagine multiple 30 minute excerpts of old school Kung-Fu movies edited into episodes, but instead of the flapping lips and the poorly dubbed English – insert gangster’s voices. It’s called “dubtitled” and it’s all the rage. While we are passing the time with Kung-Faux, there is a guy sitting directly behind me totally sawing logs (snoring) with his mouth open and everything. The snoring continued for sometime and when we were finished with watching Kung-Faux, Shawn took the initiative to recline and relax. I followed suit confident that nothing was going to wake up the snoring Frankenstein behind me because the lauder you snore the deeper you are asleep, right? Wrong! Frankenstein immediately delivered a double stiff-arm to the back of my seat, while simultaneously moaning, (in his deepest Frankenstein voice) ‘there’s not enough room.’ I was shocked and was astonished at the brevity of Frankenstein’s exit from hibernation.
After a moment of reflection, I looked over at Shawn to see if he had witnessed the travesty that had just ensued. [For those of you who don't know, Shawn loves joking around, regardless of the situation.] His immediate idea was to take a picture of Frankenstein while he was snoring, in effort to illustrate the awkward David and Goliath transaction.
I quickly retrieved my cell phone and switched it to stealth mode so that Frankenstein did not know what shenanigans we were up to (despite his immediate return to a boisterous slumber). After a few attempts, Shawn captured a Pulitzer Prize winning photo of Frankenstein in all his glory.
Because it was taken with my camera phone, I was not able to include it with this post; however please check back upon our return and re-read this post (photo and all).
Cheers,
Scott
