Stewie was quite the character. A Māori man himself, he would give his own twist on the story of the surrounding lands. For example, he told us the legend of the sleeping giant who was burned to death to form the hole in the ground which is now filled by lake Wakatipu. We were sitting in the back and his Kiwi accent was strong so we only caught every third word.
To make matters more interesting, he gestured wildly to the side of the road whenever he was pointing out the many landmarks of note. Each gesture was accompanied by a swerve of the bus, which he sometimes overcompensated for by sending us towards oncoming traffic. There were white posts on the side of the road every 20 meters or so, a good portion of which were askew, which I took as evidence that Stewie had been using this route for some time. It was a harrowing journey to Glenorchy, but we did eventually make it in one piece.
We transferred in Glenorchy to an older guide who would take us on a tour of the forest. On the way in, he stopped to tell us about the many movies and commercials that had been shot in these scenic surroundings (thanks in large part to the tax breaks the government has in place for the industry.). This farm, for instance, has made more money from film than it ever will from the sheep and cattle that graze on it.
The tree-line here was animated into the walking, talking trees called Ents, of The Lord of The Rings fame.
The shot below (or perhaps 50 meters to the left) was enhanced with a gazillion dollars-worth of CG to form the city of Isengard from The Two Towers.
The same mountains have been known to double for the Rockies in Coors commercials, and even on the bottle!
Apparently the upcoming prequel, The Hobbit, has booked some part of these surroundings to do some shooting as well.
Having toured the movie set that is the Dart-river farmland, we ducked into the forest for a nature walk of another sort. Here our guide showed us the tall Beech trees, misnamed because the early explorers thought they resembled the Beech trees in the northern hemisphere.
Well, we tried to escape the movie-madness, but you can't walk 10 meters in New Zealand without running into something related to Peter Jackson's interpretation of the trilogy. These older Beeches with their knobby gnarls inspired the CG creation of Treebeard.
Some of the trees were rotting from the inside out; making them good hiding places for animals or tourists.
Or spiders.
The area used to be used for logging, but is now protected.
Not shown above are the invasive species that inhabit the area. The whole of New Zealand had no land mammals (unless you count a bat) before man came along. Back in the 1830s, rabbits were introduced into the region to start a fur trade, and to the surprise of the settlers they bred like, well, rabbits. The rabbits quickly decimated the native vegetation and even became an issue for farmers by stealing the sheeps' food.
In 1885, New Zealand's government took what I call the "old-lady-who-swallowed-a-fly" approach to the over-population problem. Specifically, they imported and released the stoat, a weasel-like creature, to hunt and kill rabbits. With no natural predators and a fecundity on par with rabbits, the stoat population became an epidemic of it's own. As the scientists at the time had predicted, native bird populations on the island began to dwindle.
Nowadays the forests are lined with traps, but stoats are shy and clever. They usually hunt in pairs, and if one gets caught in a trap, the surviving stoat will tend to tell the others to steer clear of the area. Our guide told us that they often have to move the traps up to two kilometers before the stoats will start taking the bait again.
With that last fact, the informational portion of our tour was over and the adrenaline portion was about to begin.
Due to its unique propulsion system, the jet boat can glide over as little as four inches of water. Less if your willing to scrape up the bottom of the boat.
We zoomed up the river as far as we could without going aground. In the deeper eddies we'd pull a hard turn and do a 360 before continuing upstream. We could only pull the camera out in a few select spots where the driver stopped, since water sprayed in when going full speed.
We even made it into a few pools that are unreachable in the drier months.
The sun-glasses were more for the wind than for actual sun.
We eventually turned around and sped all the way down to Lake Wakatipu and over to the docks at the "bustling" town of Glenorchy.
We had lunch in one of the two village cafés before Stewie took us back to Queenstown. We were able to get back with plenty of time to spare for the 2:30 skydiving departure even though the diving was another 30 minute drive outside of town. Turns out that the extra time was unnecessary, however, since the morning dives had been delayed by clouds and wind, pushing everybody back an hour. This rock on a string serves as their barometer.
We went with a company called NZone, which has a good online reputation. No one has died in their care yet! The plane they used could fit 10 to 12 people uncomfortably. Each tourist diver has their own tandem professional, and possibly an additional camera man (I saw no women), so it can get a little crowded. Fortunately, the ride is short. It takes less than 15 minutes to get up to 12,000 feet, the height that Ming and I were jumping, and just a few minutes more to get up to 15,000, the maximum height NZone offers.
The extra 3,000 feet was another 75USD, which might sound reasonable until you do the math. Regardless of where you jump, you open the shoot at around the same altitude, meaning you spend all your extra time at terminal velocity, which is 200 meters a second. So you fall through that 3,000 feet in 15 seconds, meaning you are paying 5$ a second. We were told by some knowledgeable people at our lodge that your first dive is a blur anyway, so it might be best to take the money you save and get some pictures or DVDs to prove to yourself it happened.
At the grounds, we waited around for the groups ahead of us to go up and plummet back to earth.
I never was able to spot divers without their chutes open.
The process took a while and we seemed to be at the back of the "queue", so it caused quite a bit of anxious anticipation. Luckily, the grounds had free Internet and a couple of games to keep us occupied.
When 5:00pm rolled around all the other groups had gone and it was finally our turn to suit up. There was just one other customer going up with us so we got to talking while we waited for our tandem divers. Turns out this was his second dive, and he was really psyched about doing it in such an amazing location. His last dive was in Connecticut, and he was basically falling onto a town he knew like the back of his head. This would be quite a bit different, even if the cloud cover obstructed his view for a while.
One of the diving professionals made his way over to us. The moment had come. The last three divers would finally get their chance. "Looks like the wind has picked up a bit making it unsafe to dive," he said, "you guys can get a refund or try again tomorrow." We were flying out tomorrow, but it was going to be an afternoon flight, so there was a chance we could do it if the weather behaved.
We rode the shuttle back somewhat dejected. We consoled ourselves with Queenstown's most famous burger place, Ferg Burger, where the queue was huge but the wait was worth it.
The burgers were huge too!
This place has made quite a name for itself in the last decade.
Despite the canceled sky-diving the day was full of adventure so we went to sleep early, in hopes of waking up early to good weather tomorrow.
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Location:Queenstown, New Zealand
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