Queenstown

Thursday, October 15, 1998
Well, it's been awhile and I was going to email everyone yesterday but received some particularly bad news regarding Fafner and his health. It all looked like gloom and doom, but...GOOD NEWS!!!! He is back at home and doing much better! Anyway, I was a wreck after this bit of drama and suddenly wasn't quite as enthused with my little adventures so I thought I'd put it off until another day. Well, today's another day and a much better one, might I add, so let me just tell you what I've been doing!

I left Franz Josef and spent 4 days in Wanaka, a very cool town with a spectacular setting right next to a lake with some awesome snow-capped mountains just across the way. Really beautiful! 9 of us rented a mini-van and drove out to Mt. Cook, the highest point in New Zealand, and went for a short hike. Would have taken a longer hike but winds were gusting up to 100k per hour! Typical...
Had dinner with some old friends of the family, Norm and Jill and went horse-back riding with them which was excellent! They're doing great and said to tell the family and the Cluckers "Hello!"

Next stop, Queenstown - Adventure Capital of the World - or so it claims to be and, let me say, from my experience there, it lives up to it! Queenstown goes off!!! Spent 4 days doing some of the most insane things ever invented by man. Jet-boating, a particularly maniacal past-time, was one of my adventures. Jet boats travel at speeds in excess of 70kph up narrow river canyons flying past rocks and boulders and missing them by a fraction of an inch in very shallow water. Hello!?!? Who thought this thing up? These boats can travel in only 10cm of water and do 360 degree spins on a dime. Wicked fun!