Canyoning in Wanaka

December 30th was spent canyoning outside of Wanaka. We were scheduled to do the "Big Nige" trip, but the water levels were so high that they only let us do the "Niger Stream" trip, which was pretty extreme with the amount of water pumping through the canyon! When we first arrived, we had to hike up a hill with all of our gear. This might have been the most difficult part of the day, but the scenery was nice!

Then we put on our super thick wetsuits, helmets, and harnesses and started our adventure. We got to abseil down a few large waterfalls like the one seen here.

We also got to do some ziplining, some cliff jumps (including one really high one!), and some sliding down water chutes (including one head first!). The sliding was my favorite part.

Sometimes you didn't even know what the bottom looked like; you just had to trust the guides and slide down into a big pool of water at the bottom. The canyon was awesome; it was like a naturally occurring water park!



















Canyoning made for a really fun day full of adventure, and we're so glad we did it. I'll end with a video of Zack doing one of the jumps with an oh-so-graceful landing!

Puzzling World in Wanaka

On Saturday, December 29, Zack spent the morning doing some rock climbing while I took a little hike near the lake we were camping next to in Wanaka. In the afternoon, we went to Puzzling World. This attraction includes all sorts of illusions and puzzles and such. It was somewhat entertaining, though I wouldn't say it was a must-do. I've included pictures of some of the more interesting parts of the place.

The faces on this wall would "follow" you as you moved, kind of like the Mona Lisa.

I'm actually standing up straight.

Zack and I are standing in the same room!

This is what it looked like up close.

From a certain angle, you see this.

The indoor area had all of the above illusions (plus lots more). Outdoors was the maze. You had to find four different colored towers (one in each corner). It took us quite awhile and was quite frustrating at parts, especially when you ended up at dead ends or couldn't find your way to the bridge you needed. Eventually we found all four towers and then took the shortcut out because we were sick of the maze by then! The picture below shows just a small portion of the maze.

This was near the toilets.

Out in front of the place you could take funny pictures with this clock tower, and one of our masterpieces is seen below. Puzzling World was a decent way to spend a cloudy afternoon in Wanaka.

Carving it up at Cardrona

Zack and I flew into Queenstown on Thursday, August 16. We explored the cute little town that evening and planned to meet up with our friends the next day at Cardrona Ski Resort. They had flown in on Wednesday and were staying in Wanaka, which is an even smaller town about an hour away from Queenstown. Anyway, we got up early on Friday morning and watched the sun rise over the mountains as we drove toward Cardrona...

New Zealand definitely has lots of sheep. Here is one group we passed by early that morning...

We drove up and up the mountain road...

We finally reached the resort and saw some snow!

We met up with Todd and Alena and Adam and Emily and their friend Kate (who lives in Wanaka but is from Denver too). Kate took this picture of the six American expats...

Now, to be honest, our expectations for snowboarding in New Zealand were quite high. We thought it would be just as good as, or actually better, than it is in Colorado. That assumption was completely incorrect. Cardrona is one of the bigger resorts, and it is TINY compared to the ones we're used to boarding. It seemed to have nearly all man-made snow, and the conditions were sort of slushy. But that didn't stop us from having fun! After almost two years, it was a blast to be on a snowboard again, and the weather was sunny and perfect. The views from the resort were incredible, and we had a great time cruising down the slopes with our friends.

Zack and I moved to Australia with no intention of ever snowboarding while we were here, so even though I had just gotten a new snowboard and outfit the year before we left, it's all back in the United States. To get by on this trip, my outfit and gear was a combination of borrowed, rented, and purchased op shop items! Zack, on the other hand, has had the same coat and pants for many years, so we could justify buying new stuff for him when we found a sale at a store called Auski in Melbourne. The funny thing is, he chose this combination of a blue coat and orange pants on his own, but everyone on the mountain seemed to have the same color combo! I captured one of his twins in the picture above right.

Tomorrow, I'll post about our day spent snowboarding at The Remarkables, but here's one last picture from the top of Cardrona...

Check out that view...the one behind the cute guy!
P.S. I have no idea what the mustache was about.