A Good Friday

I don't really know how to follow up yesterday's post, but I guess we were alive today. Today was relatively unplanned....which means we had a list of 10 or so different things to do just in case. We decided to start the day with a hike down by Twelve Mile Stream before anything else was open. We had a short car ride and the radio was really quite interesting today. Easter and Good Friday are HUGE here in New Zealand. Combine Labor Day (it's their last Holiday weekend before Winter), Halloween (Every New Zealander we've seen has left the grocery store with some kind of Cadbury Chocolate Egg or Bunny the last couple weeks) and add a little Christmas (they are very sincerely religious about the holiday). We listened to a radio discussion about how to approach Easter with young children. How do you relate to a two year old the sacrifice that Good Friday represents? How much do chocolate bunnies deter from this meaning? They had an entire discussion about chocolate deterring from Easter, much like we would discuss presents taking away from Christmas. Chocolate is THAT big. It was interesting to gain insight on the holiday in New Zealand, and it actually helped us to gain a deeper appreciation and respect for Good Friday and Easter. Like one man said on the radio, "Without Easter, Christmas is meaningless."

We finally arrived at our location to hike. Like many scenic places, it was also a location for....you guessed it, Lord of the Rings. To be honest, I don't think there's hardly an attractive place in New Zealand not used in the movies. If the Discovery channel could remove the characters from the film, they'd have a polished documentary of New Zealand. It was a much shorter hike than most of the other hikes we've done. Twelve Mile stream is just that. It looks as if it can multiply in size quickly if it rains but doesn't have enough constant water to support any fish.

Just add Oliphants and Haradrim

After the hike, we went back to Queenstown and walked around the city center. We bought some souvenirs and if you want something, just wire me some cash, as I'm about out. Queenstown Gardens is a "must see" and was our next stop - we enjoyed a picnic lunch on a fairly hidden park bench. As we people watched and ate, we saw a bunch of people walking by with disc golf discs. I had bought a putter with a New Zealand tournament logo on it as a souvenir, so Cindy convinced me to play a round of disc golf in New Zealand. Awesome!

Here I am tee-ing off from a rock. Yes, that is the starting pad for hole number 2 on the course.

The course was much shorter than most back home, which was good since I only had a putter. I somehow managed to birdie a par 4 due to a lucky roller shot, but mostly had trouble getting around the trees (including a few sequoias).

We then headed on to our one scheduled activity: the Skyline Gondolas. We haven't seen any amusement parks here, so I think this is as close as you get. You ride in a gondola a kilometer up above the city. The ride was scary enough that Cindy decided to skip the bungee jumping and para-sailing you could do at the top. The view was fantastic. I don't think many of the plane tours actually get up that high.

Queenstown from the top of the Skyline ride

The one thing we decided to do at the top was the Luge! It was better than Go Carts. They've made 2 courses where you ride down on....the luge things....and you can get going pretty fast.

Us with our luge helmets on. You can see people going down the track in the background.

The rest of the evening we just relaxed by walking around downtown Queenstown. We sat by a dock for a while and walked through the open air market. I (Grant) was excited to eat at Fergburger again, but sad it would be my last. I don't know what tomato relish is.....but it's amazing. We also had fun joking about the burger names, which include Sweet Bambi (Venison), The Codfather (Blue Cod), Little Lamby (Lamb) and Bun Laden (like Bin Laden - it's a falafel "burger"). Tomorrow we head back North (but stay on the South Island) and eventually back to the airport. It's sad to think that our trip will eventually have an end, but it's crazy to think of how much we've done and seen. We hope you all have a nice Good Friday at home! We definitely had a great one here in New Zealand!

Love, the George family