Holes in Your Pocket

Today I worked at the cinema and unfortunately I had to work floor, which means I had to clean the theaters and tear tickets. I usually work in the candy bar...so it goes. Anyways, it was really slow this morning and I was bored. So I decided to do a little searching. After the movies came out and I went in to clean the theater, I would grab a torch and drop on my hands and knees. I've learned that holes and short pockets are my friend. Besides finding heaps of lollies, popcorn, and napkins, I was able to rack up $6 today. I was quite excited about my findings. I work floor tomorrow and after a busy super Tuesday night I'm hoping to find heaps more.

Tara's 25th

On May 16 I turned the big 25. That's right, I'm half way to 50 years old. Dave had planned a wonderful birthday for me, all a secret of course. I woke up around 10:30 to smell a yummy aroma in the air. He had got up early and made me breakfast. He would have served it to me in bed, but I woke up too soon. Shoot. I was just too excited to start my birthday. We had fruit-filled pancakes with homemade whipped cream. After breakfast I showered and was told we needed to leave the house at least by noon. We started driving east. My presents were in the back seat, which I was allowed to open on our way to the next destination. Dave had bought me a scarf and gloves. He remembered me telling him how cold I would get riding home on the scooter from work at night. (It's winter here now and it gets quite cold at night.) He also bought me some chocolates. He knows me well. They were gone in no time. One of his coworkers, Andy, bought me a cool hat. I always let them into the movies so he thought he should get me something for that. Our next stop was the Tarawera Falls. I know, funny name right?

This waterfall is really cool because instead of flowing over the top of a cliff, it comes from an underground river and rushes through holes on the side of the cliff.

I amazingly captured a picture of bigfoot in the Tarawera Forest. Let it be known, Bigfoot is alive and well in the small country of New Zealand...and fully clothed.

...that's right, that's my husband. What a goober.

...I guess I can't talk. What a nerd.

This was a really pretty river that was so incredibly clear and beautiful.

On our way home, this little guy was crossing the road at an incredibly slow rate.

I think this is the Tarawera volcano.

After the Tarawera Falls we went back home and changed into nice dress clothes and went out to eat at a restaurant called The Lobster along the sailboat harbor. We ordered an assorted bread tray with dips for an appetizer. I had the pork flintstone which had deep fried apples and potatoe mash. Dave had chicken on top of rice with fried mushrooms. They were both oh so tasty.

We opted for no dessert in order to get to the next event on our agenda. We went home and changed into regular clothes and started on another little drive. We ended up at the Oropi Spa Pools. Dave had reserved one of the private spa rooms for an hour for us. It was so nice. I had just said how cold I was when we had got in the car. It was relaxing and the perfect way to end my birthday.

Modeling of the gifts.

White Water Rafting!!!

Tara finally let me blog! (by the way, me=Dave for anyone who hasn't discovered that whole figuring things out by the process of elimination thing) Sure, a blog about white water rafting isn't as prestigious as one about, say, Hong Kong, but it's a start. Anyways...


Tara and I went white water rafting a few days ago with a bunch of friends from church. Yes, we had only been back from Queenstown for a couple of days before doing this, but we decided to use the George Bush tax refund thing to fund this little adventure. I know we were probably supposed to spend it in the States to help the economy and all. We didn't. So, about the rafting. We went rafting on the Wairoa river with the company River Rats. Usually the river is quite docile and boring, but 26 days in the year they open up the dams and the river gets really high and crazy resulting in heaps of rapids and small water falls. Rapids and falls are rated by grades. The small ripples are grade one and the biggest ones that we went over were grade five.


We arrived at that company headquarters (a tin shack with equipment in it) and got fitted with our gear, which included water proof clothes, life jackets, and helmets. We all loaded into a bus and were driven to the starting point with our boats. There were ten of us from church, so we split up into two boats with five people per boat, plus a guide in each boat. In our boat, the guide was up front with Tara in the middle and me in the back with other people around us. When I got in the back, our guide gave me a look like I was probably going to die riding in the back. The first ten or so minutes were spent in an area of slow moving water practicing maneuvers with our guide. I can't remember his name, so I'll just call him Frank. After Frank was happy with our skills we headed down the river with our friends in the other boat following close behind. Yes, it's finally picture time. Can't you guys read anything without pictures? What are you, eight?


Just to get things started, this is what our faces looked like most of the time.



Yes, that's me smiling and Tara just hoping to live another day.



Many of the extreme rapids had clever names such as 'The Devil's Elbow' and 'Mother's Nightmare'. Very comforting.


Mother's nightmare was one of the first ones we went over. This is what it looked like. Just to recap, that's me in the back and Tara is right in front of me.











Pretty intense, but nothing we couldn't handle.



Next up, Frank told us to get ready for Double Trouble. He told us something about it being called double trouble because if you mess up early on the rapid you will be in trouble at the end. We were in trouble at the end. And I still feel like it's my fault. Before Double Trouble, there was a calm area where we stopped the boat and were briefed about what we would have to do and where to row and when to get down, etc. After this, Frank came to the back of the boat, sat really close to me, and said "I am really counting on you. When I say 'row', I need you to paddle as hard as you can so we can get the tail of the boat around". No problem. Let's do this thing.




Looking good.
Still good.


Now for a little conversation:


Frank: "Dave, what are you doing sitting down in the boat! I am counting on you to keep the boat on course!"






Dave: "Ummm, I kind of lost my paddle into the frothy rapids of death"


Frank: "This is not going to be good"




Yes, that is us going down the falls backwards.





Oops.


Oh, and this was Tara's face the entire time.


Well, it wasn't pretty but we made it and I got my paddle back a little ways downstream.

Last on the agenda, The Devil's Elbow. Just to refresh your memories, the devil is quite sinister, as is this terrifying grade 5 falls.
You call this the Devil's Elbow? More like Cinderella's elbow!



This is more like it. This is awesome!
Oh. Crap.

Tara, are you ready for this?I will take that as a yes.

AHHH!!!!Notice Tara's face. Priceless.

Dave: "Frank! I'm slipping!! I am getting destroyed back here!"

Frank: "Why did you sit in the back?!?!?"

Dave: "You made me!! No worries though, I am just going to head butt this cliff."

Tara: "Ummm, Dave? You alive?"

???

Victory!!!
What a blast!
Here a few more random action photos for you to mull over while you wait for the adrenaline to wear off...

Near the end of our two hour adventure, Frank asked us if we wanted to get out of the boat and go down the last rapids with just our bodies. We all said yes. It was about 100 meters of rushing rapids that we all went shooting down. Tara got somewhat frightened (seems odd since she was so willing to jump out of an airplane) but I was there to save her. Breathing was a little difficult and the rapids were pretty wild but we survived.

Finally we were back on land. Cold, wet and tired, but in one piece. The bus took us back to headquarters where we all had sandwiches and swapped stories. Quite an adventure.

Queenstown

A few days after my parents visited, Dave and I headed off to Queenstown on the south island. We had bought the tickets a while back through an Air New Zealand promotion website. We flew out on Monday, April 28 from the Auckland airport, so we had to park our car in the overnight car park. The arrive to Queenstown was absolutely beautiful. There were huge mountains to all sides of us. First on our agenda was to pick up the rental car and drive straight to Milford Sound.

These mountains are called The Remarkables. Later you will see pictures of them with fresh snow on top.
We arrived at Milford Sound later in the even. The drive out there was dark so we didn't get to see any of the surrounding area. We stayed at the Milford Sound Lodge and waited eagerly for our next day cruise along the water.

Tuesday: Cruise Day. This is the first thing we saw when coming out of our room, huge mountains everywhere we looked with tons of waterfalls flowing down them. It was absolutely stunning.
We drove down to the visitor's center when you met to get on your boat. This was one view we had while waiting.

We hopped on our boat a few minutes later and headed out into the water. It was rainy that day which was a good thing. Then there would be more waterfalls on the mountains and they would be much more raging.

The pictures hardly do it justice. I mean it was absolutely amazing out there. It's one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen.

At one part of the trip they brought us right up to one of the waterfalls and brought the tip of the boat underneath it. But the wind was blowing so hard that before the water fell on us, it would sweep away to the left.

The trip brought us along one side of the mountains to the open ocean and then along the other side of the mountains. While we were in the open ocean, our boat was getting pummled by huge waves. We had to hold on for dear life in order to keep ourselves from flying all over the boat cabin or fall off the boat.

Dave and I stood at the front of the boat for most of the ride. However, I ran inside just in time as a huge wave crashed over the front of the boat while we were in the open ocean.

We saw a cute little seal sleeping on a rock in the sound.

They had hot drinks and soup on the boat for us. Dave said I looked silly.

So I made him do to see how silly he looked.

Back on land. The cruise was amazing. I think everyone should see Milford Sound some time in their life. It is by far my favorite thing we've done in New Zealand.

Our cute little boat we rode on with the majestic mountains in the background.

There is a tunnel you have to go through to get to Milford Sound. It was the scariest and crummiest tunnel I've ever seen. I thought the roof was going to cave in on us.

On our drive home from Milford Sound we stopped at this one area along the road. I was downloading some pictures to make more room on the camera and Dave went exploring. He found a couple green stone or Jade stones, so I'm going to see if I can make some jewelry from them. Jade is really expensive out here.

All the little white spots on the hill are sheep. It's a little hard to see. If you click the picture, it might show up bigger.

Ah yes, the all famous kiwi bird.
On Wednesday we hung around Queenstown. We walked around downtown and then headed to Deer Park Heights where they did a lot of film for the second Lord of the Rings movie. You have to pay $20 to get in which is kind of a bummer. We thought about walking, but it was super cold outside and quite a long ways to walk.

Views from the top.

Here are the Remarkables behind Dave with a layer of fresh snow from the rainfall the previous night.
It was so cold and windy outside. It gets a lot colder on the south island than the north island.

Aren't they just "remarkable?" ...lame, I know.

This is a Korean prison built as a movie set in 1986 for a childrens Wal Disney movie called "The Rescue". The prison cost $1 million to make.

For you Lord of the Rings fans, this lake may look familiar. It is the same place where they shot the scene of the Rohan people fleeing to Helms Deep.

Here's what it looked like in Lord of the Rings.

This is the spot where Gimli fell off his horst while talking to Eowyn.

And this is the spot where Aragorn gets dragged over the cliff by a warg.


The cliff again.

Dave jumps off the same cliff where Aragorn falls off.

And this is where Legolas spotted the wargs and starts shooting bows at them.



And I think around here is where they come out of the Paths of the Dead. There wasn't a sign like the other places so I wasn't quite sure and I don't have my Lord of the Rings movies to check.
There were some llamas along the road you are allowed to feed, if you wish. Dave was afraid this one was going to spit on us.

After Deer Park Heights we rode the Gondola up to the top of a hill to see all of Queenstown.


Queenstown below.

Also by the top of the Gondola they have this thing called the luge where you ride in little one person carts around this track. It looked pretty cool, but we didn't have the time or money to do it, so I got my thrills from this little guy.

That night we went to town to have a nice dinner. We stopped at the Casino and found a game of Bingo being held. The entire audience consisted of people around their mid 20's. Queenstown seemed like a very younger crowd type town. It was really nice to be around people our age. We were able to join in on the Bingo. We didn't win anything, but it was really fun playing.

We ate at a Thai Restaurant which was tasty. I had a seafood bowl with pinapples and a coconut sauce. Mmm, mmm, good. Dave had a chicken dish with seafood and veggies. Also mmm, mmm, good. We had some gelato for dessert.

Our hostel had a free spa, so I checked it out. I could see steam coming from the water and no one was in it, so I quickly ran back to the room to tell Dave. We put on our swimsuits and jumped in. Let me also note this was an outside hot tub. We were in there for about 2 minutes and then left as quickly as we came. It was so cold! We were not impressed.

On Friday we woke up early to drive to Lake Wanaka. It had been pretty rainy for our whole trip and we had hoped to go skydiving. We kept calling the skydiving office to see if they would be jumping and it would always be too rainy, but when we called this morning they said it was a go.
On our drive to Lake Wanaka.
Queenstown from a distance.

Lake Wanaka.
We arrived at Skydive Lake Wanaka with a beautiful blue sky above us. The weather conditions were perfect. We went inside and were asked to fill out a form and initial here and sign there saying blah blah blah and if you were to die, it's not our fault type papers.

Here's the person packing our shoots. I was really hoping he was checking and double checking to make sure it opened properly.

We then watched a movie telling us about the basics of what to when you jump out of the plane. Head back. Tummy out. Feet back. Feel the tap then spread arms for freefall position.

The flight up was gorgious. I was the last one in and sat by the glass door. We had beautiful views of the mountains and valley below. There were three other guys with instructers strapped to their backs, so the little plane was quite full. And I'm pretty sure Dave got the shortest of all the instructors. His exit photo cracks me up every time.

I was the first to jump or should I say, fall out. Dave jumped third. Dave told me that the guy who jumped second (you can see him sitting to my right in the picture) was absolutely freaked out when it was his turn. When it was ok for me to jump, I had to scoot to the edge of the plane and so I was just dangling there from my instructors belly while he hung on. I sit there for about 10 seconds to have my exit photo taken from a camera on the wing and then weeeeeeeeee! out I went.

It was an incredible feeling. First you're tumbling through the air not knowing which way is which, seeing the horizon spin around you. Once you get situated, the instructor taps your shoulder to let you know you can spread your arms. From there its 45 seconds of free fall with the wind rushing at your face, drying out your mouth, making your eyes tear and your ears pop. I tried screaming, but I was going so fast no noise could come out of my mouth.

After the freefall, the instructor opens the parachute, which didn't jerk your body at all. I guess they have special parachutes that open slower than usual so there's not much of an impact on you. Then it was smooth sailing from there. He did a few circles to check the parachute. I could see Dave floating along above me.

For the landing they have you put your legs up so you slide along the ground on your butt. It was a really soft landing. I slid for about 5 ft and was done. No bumps or bruises, broken bones or death. It was absolutely incredible!

Safely back on the ground, in one piece. We got free shirts from coupons we found at our hostel, which was pretty sweet. The shirts cost $39 otherwise. It would have been cool to get the video and photo package, but it was way too expensive and I just wanted photos anyways. But we were able to purchase our exit photos, which is really all we need. Everyone should try this!

From there we drove back to the Queenstown airport to fly back home. I had one last picture taken with the Remarkables.

Views of Deer Park Heights from the plane.


Arriving in Auckland.