Change In Plans

GORF - GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED, REDNECK FUN!

Greetings again from Queenstown, New Zealand!  We are coming to really like this place: beautiful scenery, friendly people, and many opportunities to do stupid and reckless activities safely.  It has all of the best elements of a ski town, but less glitz, better weather, and cooler non-ski activities.  Fewer tattoos as well, it seems.  Today the sun was even out for most of the day, and the clouds lifted from the mountains.  What’s not to like?

I also really like the way New Zealanders talk.  They use the word “wee,” meaning “small”, in almost every sentence, and their accent rolls “Rs” and somehow transposes “eh” sounds into “ih” sounds and vice versa.  

We did a jet boat cruise this morning (www.shotoverjet.com), and Mike, the driver, said something like: “Now.  Litt me rrriv the injens a lettle, and we’ll take a wee trep up the reverrrr.  Might do a few wee spens on the way.”  Very leprechaun.

The jet boat in Shotover Canyon definitely falls into the category of good, old-fashioned, redneck fun.  Mike raced the big jet boat toward canyon walls and rock outcroppings at about 70 kilometers per hour, swerving away at the last second.  He skipped across the rapids, and did 360-degree spins (”spens”) whenever he could.  Zola and Tallulah shrieked with delight throughout the entire 40-minute ride.  

We had been a little worried about Tallulah.  All morning she kept stomping her feet, and saying “I don’t want to go on another boat ride!”  She must have been concerned that we were going back to Doubtful Sound for another four days.  When we got to the jet boat, she found out that this trip came with special clothing - rain jackets and life vests.  Once clothes and gear are introduced into an activity, she always became an instant enthusiast. When we were on the actual ride, she said, “This is super-duper, super-duper, super-duper fun!”  We signed up to ride again (half price!) in a few days.

From the jet boats, we drove into town.  Tallulah and India went to the Bead Shop, an arts-and-crafts adventure we had been promising for days.  Tallulah made herself a beautiful princess necklace of plastic hearts, bells, a couple of shells, and a yin-yang.  She could have stayed there all day.  Zola and I went to all of Queenstown’s bookstores, stocking up for potential boredom when we arrive at a sheep station tomorrow.  Zola bought a huge reference book on World War I, and immediately started asking a stream of unanswerable questions, ranging from “Why do countries fight?” to “Did they have bazookas back then?” to “Why do they call them the Balkans?”  

We had lunch at a lakefront cafe, set directly next to a great playground.  Tallulah made friends with a little German girl named Emmy, and was thrilled to show off her new necklace, flip her hair around, and be generally girly.  We have deprived her of a normal social life for a long time.  There is a 50-kilometer running race in Queenstown tomorrow.  While we ate lunch, two young Scandinavian marathon-running couples, on some type of weird trans-continental endurance double date, stripped down and went swimming in the lake.  They looked cold.

After lunch, we rented bicycles at a sweet, but very low-tech, shop run by three generations of Thai mothers and daughters.  Actually, the youngest generation was a 3 year old named Jasmine, who became Tallulah’s second new friend of the day.

The bicycles were a bit comical. India’s bike, with Tallulah on the back, had loose handlebars, dodgy brakes, and no tread on the tires.  Zola and I were on an ancient tandem.  He alternated between riding with both hands in the air, whooping at passersby, and burrowing his helmet into the small of my back “like a pro racer.”  He did not seem to do a lot of pedaling.  We rode unsteadily out of town on a hiking trail, and made it almost to Frankton before turning around.  

EASY RIDERS

Back at the bike shop, while Tallulah and Jasmine played, Zola and I took two chopper bikes for a quick spin around town: banana seats, fat tires, long handlebars, the works. As we cruised up Shotover Street, looking like complete clowns, Zola said, in all seriousness, “Dad, we are nowhere near cool enough to ride these bikes.”  Speak for yourself, small person.  It was all fun until Zola had “a wee crash into a parked veheckul.” No injuries, no damage.

At the kids’ insistence, we walked through town to Steamer’s Wharf, and went to an ice bar called Minus 5.  Everything in the bar, including the glasses, is cut from ice.  We were given special overcoats and gloves, hit up for a colossal cover charge, and ushered inside.  Zola thought it was great, but Tallulah was somehow deeply (but calmly) freaked out by the whole experience.  Maybe it was the ice sculptures of monsters that she didn’t like, or maybe it was the dour Scottish bartender.  Either way, we were soon smashing our ice glasses at the door, as directed, and headed back into a warm New Zealand summer afternoon.

TOTALLY RIDICULOUS AT THE ICE BAR

By now it was late afternoon, and we went to sit at a lakeside bar called Wai.  The family had to endure my lame jokes related to the bar’s name: What? What’s the name? Why? Who? Who told you why? Why Wai? Wai wai wai, all the way home.  Terrible. 

Coincidentally, from the terrace we had a great distant view of The Ledge, 400 meters up a mountainside.  We watched several bungy jumpers hurl themselves out of the jump hut and into space, but we were too far away to tell if they screamed.  A honeymooning English couple was at the table next to us, drinking themselves into readiness for their  jump tomorrow.

As we walked back through town, we came upon a fashion show sponsored by the Salvation Army.  Tallulah and Zola both thought this was possibly the most glamorous thing they had ever seen.  Zola, in particular, was convinced that a horde of Victoria’s Secret models was going to come down the catwalk at any moment.  When the show ended (no Victoria’s Secret models), Tallulah was very excited to sashay up and down the catwalk herself a few times.  To my discredit, I taught Zola and Tallulah the Right Said Fred song, “I’m Too Sexy,” a few months ago.  Tallulah sang this aloud, as she shook her little tush up on the catwalk.

Queenstown is great, particularly when the sun is out and people seem to be having fun all around.  This was an afternoon that we would have gladly extended by another 6-8 hours.

Tomorrow morning we get up early, and take a steamboat across Lake Wakatipu to a wee sheep station.  We will be staying there for a few days, (theoretically) riding horses, mustering sheep, and somehow being productive.  It should be fun.