Tommy & Rhonda's Travels

Queenstown

NEW ZEALAND | Friday, 2 November 2007 | Views [310]

After a pretty good night’s sleep, we woke up and headed down for breakfast at the hotel. They have a buffet and a few different options…all of it totally overpriced. We had our choice of bread, ham, cheese, fruit and cereal for $19. The best part of breakfast for me was the big glass of kiwi juice…tasty! We finished breakfast and got ready for probably our most exciting adventure in Q town, canyoning. We were both excited to do it…I did it once before in Switzerland 12 years ago and Rhonda was excited for her first time. If you don’t know what it is you basically put on a wetsuit and navigate through a canyon in whatever way possible. What we got to do on this trip was a zip line, jump off a few waterfalls, slide down a few natural waterslides, rappel down a cliff (and the option to rappel down a waterfall or jump), and stuff like that. The water was running very fast so we did really have to take caution and follow instructions of the guide to a “t” or we would easily get swept away in the rapids. By the way, the water was FREEZING! We had huge wetsuits on but no gloves so our hands were frozen pretty much the whole time. The worst part of this adventure was on about the 2^nd waterslide Rhonda hurt her back. It was really killing her and she was a trooper and tried to finish but had to walk out just before the end. She was in major, major pain. I’m not sure her walking out wasn’t harder than just finishing the trip but she bravely made it back to the van in major pain. We went straight to the Dr to get her checked out and he gave her some muscle relaxers which was a huge help. We spent plenty of time waiting for the Dr and then had about an hr and a half before her physical therapy (which is free in New Zealand for travelers). This helped a good deal and we were really having her take it easy since we were leaving the next day for a long drive to the Milford Sound and a kayak trip the next day. We needed to get her well for that. So, sadly, our last afternoon was spent at the Dr and physical therapist. We went out for a delicious dinner (even with the bad back that was getting better) at a place called Finz right on the shores of Lake Waikuputu. I had probably the best salmon I’ve ever had and Rhonda had fish n’ chips…she loved it and it was tasty. We went back pretty early since Rhonda wasn’t feeling so great (and the muscle relaxers were making her very drowsy). She crashed out pretty early and I headed out later to get us some more water and stopped at the hotel bar for a glass of wine with our San Francisco friends who were back from their trip to the Milford Sound. We chatted about that and I assured them my wife was really cool and fun even though she was jet lagged one night and knocked out by muscle relaxers that night. We exchanged info and headed to bed.

Tags: Adventures