Zoe Driver: Adrenaline Junkie

Well, just to start you off; Look at this nutter.
Ho ho, and there was me saying New Zealand might not be that blog-worthy.
I'll get back to that.
So last time we spoke we were on our way back from Kaikoura with its dolphins and whales, via Christchurch (the only photos of which I have are of the crazy golf - it's such an interesting place). We carried on South to a place called Geraldine on the Rangitata river - best rafting in NZ apparently. So that's what I did, to kick off the extreme sports. (Zoe had a relaxing day getting to know the local mad people, but I'll let her tell you about that.)
So, that's me at the front, getting wet, wetter and wettest. It was sooo much fun, I want to go every day. We finished off with a 10 metre jump into the gorge, which you can see me being very cool about *ahem*.
Things were a bit more sedate after that for a few days, some nice camping among the sand dunes, rugged coasts and the sunsets. (NB That last photo was taken in a campsite, not a concentration camp, despite appearances). Ooh, christiane, we had your jam with some scones it was lovely.
We visited the Moeraki boulders (you can see I'm starting to look like a transient after a week in the camper van) which have a honeycomb centre, geology/malteser fans. Then we headed down to Dunedin which is full of Scottish people. The Otago peninsula near Dunedin has some cool wildlife. Look at this chubby fella. And this one! He was having a very lazy day. We also went to a penguin sanctuary which had exciting underground tunnels, and, of course, some penguins. There was also a nice castle with pretty flowers round it. No visit to Dunedin would be complete (apparently) without a trip to the chocolate factory, where I was humiliated into wearing a "beard snood". Factory rick, notagoodlook. Here is Zoe in front of a mountain of crunchies.
So having got the middle-aged activities out of the way we set off for beautiful Queenstown and moved onto the stupid stuff. That's us in our jet boating outfits. Jetboats are daft things designed and operated by cheerful petrol-heads, which can be filled up with tourists, chucked around a river at several million miles an hour, and swerved past rocks, and do 360 degree spins. (I don't think they have any other purpose). There is also a video of that. Hilariously it features me picking my nose. Queenstown itself is ace, on a lake surrounded by mountains, brimming with pubs and restaurants, and full of idiots chucking themselves off things. Which brings me on to the canyon swing. I'm not sure what we were thinking here. We sort of thought it would be a nice fun swing (I imagine a few of you are shaking you heads here) but of course it's actually just a bungy jump where you don't bounce back up, you swing across. And it's more scary - your average bungy jump has 40 metres of freefall and this has 60. Sooo stupid.
So we got in our outfits, Zoe was quite calm, and I was fucking terrified. Zoe went first and after a bit of coaxing managed to jump off forwards which was mightily impressive. I was having none of this, and made them hang me up and pull a release thing so I didn't have to jump. Predictably, for full comic effect, he released it mid sentence, ("There's just a couple of things I need to *snip*") and I screamed like someone being murdered with a chainsaw. Here I am falling.
Then Zoe decided she wanted to do it again. I have NO idea what was going through her head. If you do it again you don't have to pay but you do have to do a crazy stunt - so, obviously, she chose falling off backwards strapped to a plastic garden chair. You can never get enough of this picture.
And then the next day, for a bit of respite, we did a whole day of horse riding which we loved, despite a slight feeling of the landscape being marred by Lord of the Rings tourism. Here's adrenaline Driver going at full pelt and here's me and Polar splashing about in the river. We met a lovely couple of lads on the horseriding called Peter and Alex and had lunch in a deserted mining village. Peter has promised to mention my sunglasses on his blog.
And that, as they say, is that. St Patrick's day was fairly predictable.

And if you REALLY want to see them, here are the videos of our canyon swing. *holds head in hands*

Rick
Zoe (swing 2)