Queenstown + Wanaka April 30th to 3rd May 2006 Driving around the south island you get a real sense of being in the wilderness and more often than not it's a question of "where have all the people gone?" The scenery for the drive back to Queenstown is really impressive with the snow capped 'Remarkables' truly remarkable. Queenstown is not how we had envisaged it as we'd heard that it was pretty touristy. It still retains a small ski town feel to it and is right up there in the most beautifully located towns that we visited in NZ. Queenstown has the giant lake Wakatipu right on it's doorstep with the aforementioned mountains as a backdrop. We have a bit of a stroll around town before driving on to Arrowtown, a former gold mining town which has been left the legacy of some lovely little village stores. At this time of year the trees offer us some lovely red, orange and yellow colours and is another beautiful town. We check into our motel as tonight it's Spurs vs Bolton on TV, well we say tonight but kick off is actually at 3 in the morning. Spurs win 1-0. Next day we play some crazy golf on the most elaborately designed crazy golf course ever and naturally Stu wins. There are many crazy things to do in Queenstown, also known as adrenelin rushes and Stu decides to do the Canyon Swing. The Canyon swing is basically a 109m drop, 60m of which is in vertical free-fall followed by a monster swing across a canyon as the name would suggest. It's fair to say that Stu was a bit nervous when contemplating the whole event but the staff organising it were pretty cool. One of the decisions Stu had to make was what sort of swing he wanted to do as (believe it or not) there were several different styles in which to jump off. Forwards, backwards, sitting on a chair, the pindrop all sounded pretty cool but he went for the ultimate headrush, the 'Gimp boy'. Some may say the name is appropriate but we won't go into that. The 'Gimp boy' involved Stu being levered out over the Canyon facing directly towards the ground after being tipped upside down. A matter of blurry seconds later and after much screaming Stu had finished the vertical drop and entered a lovely peaceful swing. You get an idea of how far down Stu drops when the screaming at the bottom becomes very quiet. Great fun. The next day we drive to Wanaka and pay the brilliant 'Puzzling World' a visit. After touring the museum seeing the different illusion rooms we have a go at the two-level maze (Amy finishes first) but the real highlight is all the puzzles laid out in the cafeteria afterwards. We originally intended to be in there for only about an hour but we are hooked pretty quickly especially after Stu gets pretty stuck on one of the hardest puzzles ever. Even the assistants have trouble in solving this particular puzzle and there's no way in hell Stu could have finished it. The following day we go for a walk into Mt Aspiring National Park up to see the Rob Roy Glacier. Once more the scenery is stunning and we are treated to a concert of natures making over lunch with huge blocks of ice cracking and falling down the mountain and alpine parrots squawking in the distance. In the evening we walk into Wanaka town centre and go for a few beers and a game of pool. It seems the highlight of the nightlife at this time of the year is "Lost" on the big screen in the pub or the weekly quiz down the local Irish bar, kicking it is not. Keep the messages coming, Lots of Love Stu & Amy.