Willie hates roller coasters.   He is an engineer.  When he looks at an amusement park ride, he sees the potential for human error, miscalculations, and structural weaknesses.  He can tie himself to the end of a climbing rope and throw himself off a bridge, but he HATES roller coasters. As long as he is the one tying the rope, building the ride or generally in control, he is fine. The fact that he let someone sit at the helm of a jet boat, driving 40 – 50 MPH down a shallow river, through a narrow canyon, coming centimeters from the canyon walls, took a lot of courage.  He also needed to overcome his PTSD caused by a brother that would drive their motorboat recklessly around lake Tahoe seeing how close they could come to a boat or dock at high speeds without hitting them.  Although completely gripped at the idea, he let go of his fears (mostly not to look too cowardly in front of his 12 year old daughter who after the ride, casually exited the boat and asked to go bungee jumping because the boat ride wasn’t scary enough), and purchased 4 tickets for the Shotover Jet Ride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9evp6MWZ_w&feature=youtu.be

We spent a couple of beautiful Fall days in Queenstown.  The girls did a little shopping and the boys did a little skateboarding.  We warmed up at a little harbor side Pub and the next day indulged in a cup of real coffee at Starbucks.

The best little museum in New Zealand! It is like walking into an Escher drawing.

http://youtu.be/gTyqJam5lkU

Too many quick little stops to write about.  Here are some of our favorites.

White Rock Pile

Shipwreck Creek

Haast

Blue Pools Track

We did a quick little hike up this doughboy.  It was quite the bushwack, but from the top we had a great view of Mt. Cook and the Tasman Sea.

March 31, 2013

For 2 weeks now, we have been traveling in an RV on the North Island.  Four people in a 6x20ft space for 2 weeks can be challenging.  Our kitchen, living area, bedroom, and bathroom are all within an arms reach of each other. There is no privacy and no secrets.  When someone has to change, they yell out “close your eyes, don’t look.” It also didn’t help that we were welcomed to the North Island with a nasty virus that whipped through our family like a cyclone and we spent way too many days driving around without any physical activity.We were all a little edgy that first week, but finally getting out in the surf, cutting back on our driving hours, recovering from our illness and embracing the RV life, we were back to “liking” each other again.

When we weren’t trying to find good surf, we hit some tourist attractions.

Lots of sheep

Cape Fowl Wind Walkway

Lots of Seals

Lots of Weka

The best part of our day was playing with these little guys.  The baby seals were very inquisitive and playful.  They swam right up to our kayaks and put on quite a show.  I love this photo of Aimee looking at the seal with huge eyes and the seal looking back with the same expression.

http://youtu.be/X-pAKibxOrM

Kayaking

From the ferry we headed straight for Abel Tasman National Park for some kayaking.  We woke the next morning to a beautiful warm day filled with sunshine.

http://youtu.be/33TFs75xNTs

We headed to Hot Water Beach in search of the natural hot pools.  Hot Water Beach is on the Coromandel Peninsula.  At low tide you can make your own hot spring by digging a hole along the water’s edge where the sand feels warm.  We camped at the Hot Water Holiday Park, ate some fish and chips, waited until low tide and went to dig ourselves a hot pool.

Fish and chips for dinner.

Off to dig our hot pool.

Wylie with the spade.

Enjoying our hotpool under the stars.