The Alex & The Eleanor + 1

Wednesday January 9 2008
QueenstownWanaka – canyoning
Hot hot hot

We have an early morning as we have to drive back to Wanaka by 9 to get on another bus for 40 more minutes of driving, 20 of them down horrid dirt roads going at breakneck speeds past very large cattle and sheep stations. Once there we get yet another wet suit, and harness and other good things and proceed up a mountain. Luckily they let us carry the wet suits up, because even fairly early in the morning its getting quite hot. Our group seems good – there are 5 of us which is a nice size, and everyone seems game, and only 1 person hasn’t repelled before.

We get to our put in point for the canyon, and it’s a little surreal, its take 20 or 25 minutes to climb up and it will take is 4 hours or so to go back down. But we suit up and have (another) lesson in repelling. We get in the water (partly to cool off, partly to “lube up” the wet suits – they are easier to move in when they are wet) and once again I stop whining about the wet suit – its cold. But the river is still a lot of snow melt, so I suppose it makes sense. And its such a different world, like 10 steps from hot dry mountain pasture to cool very green river canyon. The first repel is pretty fierce, and there is an option of a jump – ie, you jump into the pool instead of repelling into it. Its probably 25 feet, and I don’t even consider it. I am not a jumper. But one guy does. Looks like he had fun, but glad it wasn’t me.

We continue down, lots of repels, lots of safety ropes, lots of fun. Things start getting even more fun when we start with the front facing repels – the rocks and moss are just too slippery so half way down you flip around and essentially do a controlled slide. Occasionally you do it purpose, other times it just happens. One of these takes a fair bit of time to get everyone down, but no matter because the pool below has a nice jumping rock – maybe 10′ up. Fun, not scary. And the water, getting used to it a bit, and getting totally numb by it, is lots of fun. The wetsuits were so thick (I think equally for cold and cushioning) they acted as floats and I could just sit in the water and float. By this point I am really having a ball, and then we start to move away from the repels and do more slides – which are just what they sound like. Maybe the water levels weren’t high enough, but they were quite as much fun as I sort have to inch worm down them, never really getting momentum. But then, just because you don’t want anything to get boring, we start going head first down some. Then you get moving pretty fast. We get to the final pool, and there is another crazy jump – probably over 30′, and a very small area in which to land. Again, the one guy (and our guide) does it. That one was just scary to watch. We then (sadly) climb up the river bank and then do a zip line back across the canyon – zip lines are lots of fun in small doses, but whole courses of them get a little dull. I know, I know, I am hard to please! But I really loved the canyoning. I have no idea if there is any wet canyoning in the States, but I am certainly going to look. There is a dry version as well, I will have to try that soon. We emerge, once more into the bright sun. We are shocked to see its 4pm, and we have gone such a small distance – we have to walk down the mountain a bit to get back to the van. We have some simple, but much appreciated lunch and since the other 2 more advanced groups aren’t done yet, we get to head back into town. All of a sudden I am  very glad we ended up on the trip we did, though it really had everything to do with being with game people – like they say, skill is nice, but attitude is everything. We head back to QT once again, this time taking the longer route, which is still pretty, but much longer. No cliffs though, which I appreciate since I am driving.

For dinner we go to a fairly casual fish place in town – Fishbone. I am quite happy since they have oysters, which are suppose to be quite wonderful in NZ, but aren’t in season. I don’t know if these were imported or what, but they were tasty. For my main I had a small sized bowl of the green lipped mussels, steamed in a white wine broth like mussels I am used to. They are good, better then the grilled ones with toppings I had in Havelock, but I like black mussels better. For dessert we split there Pavlova – a Kiwi favorite that is pretty much just merguine with whipped cream, as far as I can tell. But I like it, so I happy to see it.