Queenstown, Wellington, Rotorua

We've been in New Zealand for about a week now and are having a blast. We started off in Queenstown on NZ's South Island. Queenstown is the extreme sport capital of the world and the location of the first commercial bungy jumping operation. There are ways to scare yourself here than you knew existed. For example, have you ever heard of zorbing or sledging? Zorbing is rolling down a hill inside a large ball. Sledging is like white water rafting only there's no raft, just a small sled you ride down on by yourself. Our participation in the adrenaline activities was limited to jet boating (riding in a boat thrust to 50 mpg by water jets down a river mere inches from the canyon walls) and luging (driving a little cart down a hill).

Queenstown is also an incredibly scenic area and we did our best to see all the best vistas. We did a couple hikes around town - one through a light rain which wasn't that fun on the way up but we were rewarded by a rainbow at the top and another where we stumbled upon a herd of sheep.

On the last day we took a scenic flight in a very small plane to the awe inspiring Milford Sound. The 40 minute flight over the mountains (which shortcuts a 5 hour drive around the mountains) was amazing - 70% magnificent landscapes, 20% harrowing, and 10% nauseating (at least for Sam, the percentages may have been reversed for Sarah). Upon arriving we took a two hour cruise on the sound before flying back over the mountains to Queenstown. For once Sam was glad he wasn't flying the plane:

Milford Sound - to give you a sense of scale, the tiny white dots on the lake near the base of the mountains are large 50+ person boats.

This waterfall is 3x higher than Niagara Falls (although obviously not nearly as wide):

This waterfall is so tall the top is above the clouds. We took this picture from the plane:

After Queenstown we flew to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand for a couple days. The highlight was seeing a rugby match, even though we didn't really understand what was happening. Even without knowing the rules we could definitely appreciate the physicality of the sport - kind of makes our NFL stars look like wimps.

Wellington also has a nice botanical garden, where Sarah showed us what she would look like as a Spanish moss tree.

We're currently in Rotorua, the epicenter of thermal activity in New Zealand. The ground steams in numerous places indicating hot pools. We took a mud bath (not as luxurious as it sounds) and saw some awesome geysers.

Rotorua is also the center of Maori (the indigenous people of NZ) culture. We went to see a traditional performance where Sam was drafted to come on stage and join in the warrior dance. The dance is designed to intimidate the enemy in hopes they'll run away and avoid a battle, hence the protruding tongues.

Finally, under the category of "why didn't we think of that" a grocery store here has electronic price tags, saving paper and eliminating the need for someone to manually change all the tags.

We're now beginning the driving tour portion of our NZ itinerary. Today we're driving into the national park and preparing for tomorrow's 17 km Tongariro Alpine Crossing hike, which is supposed to be the best one day hike in NZ.