Wanaka and Queenstown - Adrenaline Time!

What word could describe Wanaka and Queenstown? Fun!

Wanaka is an awesome town with a very chill atmosphere.  It’s situated in the mountains and would be similar to Canmore.  Queenstown is like Banff – tourist central!  Both were great spots for us to spend time in!

Wanaka was action-packed. Since it was raining on our first morning in Wanaka, we headed to the Wanaka pool for a swim before hitting up the Wanaka brewery for a tour in the afternoon. After that we spent some time at the Wanaka library charging iPhones/computers and downloading photos.  We had an early dinner at Red Star – a local burger joint with delicious and massive burgers.  In the evening, we went to Cinema Paradiso to see J. Edgar.  Definitely not your average theatre!  All seats are couches or comfy arm chairs and there is a break in the middle of the movie to have dinner or a snack of homemade cookies and ice cream.

The view from our campground near Wanaka. Snow White was our picnic table...

Is this crazy or what?? I found this rock on my way back from the ladies room at our campground.

Kyle admiring the recent addition to his jacket, courtesy of a bird. 

The next day, we went paragliding at Treble Cone. This was totally amazing!  I don’t really know how to describe it other than peaceful.  Just like floating.  Kyle had his GoPro camera as well as the company’s GoPro camera so there are some great shots!  Unfortunately the battery in the camera I had died just after Kyle took off.  It was an amazing experience!!

This was the view before we stepped off land and into the air!

This was what I thought of paragliding!!!  An enthusiastic thumbs up!

In Queenstown, we went for a beautiful run around the lake that Queenstown is situated around before going for a quick swim.  After that, we dressed ourselves up in wetsuits, flippers and helmets, and went whitewater surfing down Class I, II, II and IV rapids.  I don’t really know how to describe this – it seemed like everything was going to end up in chaos yet somehow we’d all come out on the other side of the rapids.  There was a “standing wave” at about the halfway point and we all had the opportunity to try to surf it.  Kyle succeeded on his second attempt and surfed for quite a while!  It was totally crazy to watch the guides surf this wave…they were phenomenal!  They could sit and sometimes even stand up on their boards in the wave. Here are a couple of photos but we didn't get many so use your imagination...

People were bungy jumping off this bridge as we were going under!

A great time!!  After the whitewater surfing, we wandered around Queenstown watching all of the crazies on St. Patrick’s Day.