Adventure Capital of the World

We continued on our South Island Adventure to the Southern Alps as they like to call them. This is the main skiing area in New Zealand. The mountains are gorgeous . There are also lakes all over. People come here for any sort of outdoor adventure you could want. It is very unspoiled with some roads just being gravel. They filmed many of the Lord of the Rings outdoor scenes here. You can even take a Lord of the Rings tour is you want.

Queens town and Arrow town are the two main towns we visited. Most Kiwis don't care for Queens town because it is too touristy. It is full of restaurants, hotels, souvenir shops, and travel excursion stores. Arrow town is much smaller and more like a small older town. It was one of the main places the Chinese came to pan for gold. They still have remnants of the settlement there. We were told about an opportunity to see a unique movie theater so we decided to go. It had silk walls and ceiling. The chairs were large and assigned to you. On the back of the chair there was a blanket for you. They had trays for you to put you food on. Wine and cheese were the favorite food order for many. They also had 1 intermission so that you wouldn't miss any of the movie for a bathroom break. We watched Invictus . We were surprised they showed it since the final scene of the movie is the South Africans beating the New Zealand Blacks in rugby.

The whole area is know as the adventure capital of the world. Everywhere you look you could find some sort of adventure. You could parachute, wind surf, rock climb, ..... One of the 2 most popular adventure rides is the jet boat. It take you down narrow caverns at high speeds while your head barely misses the rocks.


The second popular thing to do here is bungee jump. It is said that the bridge here is where bungee jumping first started. Knowing the Kiwis need for adventure I wouldn't be surprised

We were not feeling as adventurous as the kiwis so we passed on these two popular options. We opted instead to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain. There was a luge track up there where Rachel and Steve decided to have their adventure. I opted out. It sounded like you could go very fast and I wasn't sure I wanted that. When we got up to the top Rachel and Steve made their way over to the luge track. Here is a picture.

Oh well so much for the great adventure.