Hi All

So after the West coast we headed to adrenalin city Queensland. Here people from around the world gather to do their adrenalin challenges. This is going to sound like a sponsored tour as Walter and Mildred paid for Cullum’s Swoop bungee on the North Island. Then Jess chose to do the shotover rapids on a Jet boat in Queenstown. Andrew gave Vic and Cal a trip on the same jet boat as their birthday presents. I opted out as I would rather drive than be a passenger, so took pictures of their adventure.

Vicki and the kids are in the back, this goes through narrow gorges at 80KM/H

I have always wanted to try Hang gliding and the conditions were perfect for this on the local mountain, so courtesy of the “Schofield travel grant” trusty of the grant system…. ME, I took a great flight over the mountains into the valley below. Something I may do as a new sport, it was fantastic and very relaxing.

Take off and airborne

Also courtesy of the “Schofield travel grant” birthday  fund, Vicki decided to hurl herself out of a plane at 12,000 feet! She loved the experience and now fancies an oxygen jump from higher. For those asking…yes I did try to get the instructor to put in a faulty parachute, but apparently it was against company policy!

Instruction…”when at 12,000 ft. jump out of little hole on the side of plane

Almost down

Kick me in the face before landing as a result of faulty parachute comment

Slightly happily on the ground

After this we travelled back North on route to Christchurch, we met up with Peter for a coffee as he was towing the rowing boats down from Auckland for the NZ school championships. He really is quite a celebrity and all the NZ rowers know him for being a world champ and only missing out on Olympic gold at the Moscow Olympics as NZ was forced by big brother to boycott!

On the way we went to Puzzle world where Vicki had a nasty encounter ……

And I shrunk and Cal grew…not sure if you can see us, Cal on the left me on the right.

And finally Jess on the toilet with some very old people

Mount Cook where Sir Edmund Hillary trained before going up Everest, the Museum dedicated to him was really interesting

We then arrived in Christchurch….it looks like a bomb has hit this place….buildings falling down and rubble all over the place!

Oh forgot….. yes this was the place that got hit by a huge earthquake last year that literally destroyed most of the downtown and the shocks were felt as far as 400KM away. Really sad to see the destruction and Callum said he felt very spooked by the “broken city”

The new downtown city is made from shipping crates

Anyway on the bright side we went to the opening of the new Crusaders stadium and their Super 15 game against the Cheetahs from SA.(the old one which had  just been revamped in 2010  was destroyed 6 months before the World cup and games were rescheduled in other cities) The game was fantastic, it was a capacity crowd and everyone had  red and black flags waving.  I had my Springbok Jersey on and felt very lonely as I jumped up and down when the Cheetahs scored! The fan-fare was great, the Crusaders always have horses galloping around the field with knights on in the pregame show. After the game the kids wanted autographs and even got the NZ world cup winning captain Richie McCaw to sign a crusaders flag for them!

So from here we are of for some R&R in the mountains for 2 days and then we head back to Aus. We have had a spectacular time in New Zealand, made new friends, seen old ones and enjoyed the ever changing landscape of NZ.

The only thing we don’t regret is leaving the comforts of our luxury camper van