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As BJ spent the afternoon working away, I spent it in the air on a tandem paragliding flight with Brad at Coronet Peak. I wrapped up my work day at around 1pm and met up with Gretchen in town for a hike up the gondola trail. We made it about half way up when Brad called from the flight park out at Coronet Peak and asked if I wanted to go on my first tandem flight. I turned to Gretchen and asked “Can we cut our hike a little short today?”

Gretchen has flown with Brad quite a few times and she could easily tell how excited I was to go. We turned around, hiked back down the mountain, hopped in the car and drove out to landing zone at the base of Coronet Peak. There were high clouds in the sky so Brad wasn’t sure we would have a long flight. But we were nicely surprised in the air as the sun came out, warmed the mountain sides, and kept us up for a little over an hour.

It was an awesome flight. We soared back and forth along a ridge multiple times and although it’s safer and, I suppose, “better” to be higher in the sky, I really liked being close to ridge and tree tops. As we flew to the landing zone, Brad pulled us into a series of asymmetric spirals, a technical term for flying really really fast in circles. I thought my eyeballs might pop out the back side of my head but I loved it. We landed safely and had to spend a minute figuring out how to walk again. Thank you Brad!!

BJ called just shortly thereafter and I headed back to town to pick him and his wing up and bring them back out to the park so he could kite. He’s not quite mentally ready to launch himself off a mountain, but I think a few more evenings kiting his wing will get him amped up to fly again. The four of us ended the evening over a Mexican feast and Speight’s, our first Mexican meal since we left home, with our roommates back at our flat.

We spent a rainy Monday driving around Queenstown, making phone calls, visiting flats, and slowly weeding our list of rooms for rent down to about three that we really liked. We, of course, ended up at the very first one we looked at and moved in right away. We have two roommates – Ali and Steve – a couple from England who has recently gained Kiwi residency. Steve works as a concierge in a local hotel and Ali, an ex-CSI, works at a clothing shop and is 6 months pregnant. They are super nice and really easy going. I think we found ourselves a good match . . . and a great view. We are just a short drive, and about a 30 minute walk, from the booming downtown Queenstown. We weren’t expecting to end up in a bigger city, but it’s a nice change of pace to our quiet little hometown in Idaho. There are trails everywhere and every mountain peak that surrounds Lake Wakatipu seems to be calling out “come to me.” After a day of work at our new flat, we met up with Brad, Gretchen, and an old paragliding buddy of BJ and Brad’s, Smiley, this evening for dinner. Brad, Smiles, and Gretchen spent the afternoon around Coronet Peak, a local ski area, and got in an hour flight, the longest one yet. They hope to get BJ back out there and playing with his paraglider soon.

We checked out of our organic studio at 10am on Saturday morning. After a quick tour of the Saturday morning crafts fair and farmer’s market in downtown Nelson, I dropped BJ off at the library to focus on work for a few more hours while I took a backpack full of dirty clothes to the laundry mat and browsed the crafts and fresh veggies a few more times. At 1pm we hopped in the car and drove south along the west coast to make our way towards the Queenstown/Wanaka region. Brad was able to find the local paragliding hill and Gretchen and he were going to spend the day flying and then head south as well. We hope to meet up with them in a couple of days.

Lonely Planet says that the west coast “will remind Californians of Big Sur.” The tiny highway, violent waves, sudden drop off to the ocean, and the beauty are all very similar to Cali’s coast. Just take away the hoards of people and the tall redwood forests and replace them with a coastal rainforest so dense that you couldn’t machete your way through. Add a few pastures here and there between the road and the ocean, something you would never see along either US coast, and place a few enormous snow capped mountain ranges just a few kilometers inland from the road. Oh, and throw a few glaciers and brilliant icy blue rivers in there as well. This is the New Zealand we have been waiting for. Don’t get me wrong, we have been thoroughly enjoying ourselves down here. But something about seeing mountains again, and big ones to say the least, has lit a fire under our eagerness to explore such stunning landscapes.

Saturday afternoon we stopped for a beer and some fish and chips at the Revingtons Hotel in Greymouth (Tim, we had a Montieth’s beer but the brewery itself was very closed) and then fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing at a small campground in a very small coastal town called Okarito. With many more hours to go on the road to Queenstown today, we briefly visited Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers as well as Mount Aspiring National Park in hopes that we will return with family early next year.

We now find ourselves in Queenstown. It has become a Mecca for outdoor extreme sports as the signs for bungee jumping and rafting will tell you. But there is a reason it is so popular. It sits directly above the huge Lake Wakatipu and is surrounded by mountains on all sides. Although its busy-ness and bungee-craze may get old after a while, we find ourselves drawn to the area as we were both drawn to Jackson, Wyoming. Nothing like travelling across the Pacific to find ourselves in a place just like home.