Michelle and Brent

Tuesday April 15, 2007 1:30pm

This is our last day in New Zealand. The remainder of our Contiki Tour was pretty fantastic. We left you in Queenstown after Michelle's Canyon Swing. That night we went to an Ice Bar, which is exactly how it sounds, a bar made of ice. There were sculptures and benches and it was very cold. Everyone going in had to wear a parka.
The next day, we did our full day hike within a national park. It took about 7 hours for the whole day, which included 10 km up a mountain to a lodge where we had lunch overlooking one of the most spectacular views we've ever encountered. We could fill our water bottles from the natural glacier-fed rivers and streams and did not see another peson for hours at a time. After lunch we hiked back down the way we came and back to the van. There were 7 of us plus one guide who was extremely friendly and informative. We explained to us about native flora and fauna and lots of tidbits about the national park...and pretty much anything else we had questions about (Michelle had lots about sheep).

The following day was our time to leave Queenstown. On the way out the bus stopped at The Kawarau Bridge, home to the first commercial bungy site in the world. This is where I leapt off with a giant rubber band attached to my ankles. It was awesome! Nothing like sky diving, but very exciting and exhilarating as well.
The next adventure for us was a boat cruise down in Milford Sound. It was an overnight experience with amazing views and great times! Michelle did some kayaking, while I jumped off the boat with some other people into the 13 degree water. The neat thing about this sound (which is ACTUALLY a fijord) is that due to the immense amount of rainfall the area gets (about 300 days a year, or up to 9metres), the top 5metres of water is freshwater, with the rest being salt water. We got to sleep on the boat, which neither of us had ever done before also.

We then spent a further two days on the bus heading back up to Christchurch where we are now. We are spending the day around the city, shopping and hanging out before catching our plane to Sydney at 6pm. Once in Sydney we will be heading to my cousin Jessica's apartment for a few days before starting to tour around.

We now have about 2 and a half weeks before we come home!

Brent

Saturday April 4th, 2008 5:30pm

We have made it to Wellington, NZ which is the capital city, despite being quite small compared to Auckland. It is at the southern tip of the northern Island, and our home for the next couple days.

Yesterday was one of the most exciting days for us as we embraced the adrenaline junkie lifestyle needed for New Zealand. If you do a quick internet search of the place we just left, Taupo, it will reveal what we did. Any guesses??

We threw ourselves out of an airplane at 12,000 ft. I know, I know, it may sound crazy...but we did it. And it was absolutely incredible! We had a professional strapped to our backs so there was no real danger, but it was terrifying nonetheless to be sitting on the edge of a place with the door open and nothing below you but clouds. The freefall was about 45 seconds, but it really felt like about 10. The adrenaline is still pumping in both mine and Michelle's bodies and we are still giddy about the experience. The views were amazing all around. We could see the whole town (very small, about 20,000), the large lake, the mountains off in the distance. There is a reason it is said to be the best place in the world to skydive.

Now that we are in Wellington, we are staying with a friend of mine, Sarah, who I got in contact with thanks to my good friend Karly Mundy. After a few days here, we will be heading to the South Island and down to Christchurch for our Contiki Tour which starts on Tuesday.

Thats about all the excitement that we have had the chance to do...but this is the land of adventure tourism, so it is sure to not be the last of it!

Rock on,

Brent

April 3 2008, 7pm
Rotoura, New Zealand
We made it out of India last week and are now enjoying the fresh air and wonderful fall weather of New Zealand. It is so much like home, just on the total other side of the world. We are both at ease and picking up our tourist pace after a few wonderful days at Rachaels.
After travelling for 10 weeks without a home cooked meal, we were thrilled to have a home to go to after our flight from Mumbai. Rachael, a friend I met a few summers back at camp in the States, showed us all around the east and west coast of the Auckland area on Saturday. We saw a surfers beach, some city parks and volcanoes, they are everywhere in Auckland. Every hill in the city is, or was, a volcano at some point in the past. On Sunday we headed to the city after and excellent sleep in and went up the Sky Tower (just like the CN Tower) and checked out the views. On the Sky tower they have all these extreme activities like sky walks, where you walk around the outside of the tower and jumps off.
On Monday we took the ferry to an Island volcano just in the middle of the port which is the youngest volcano around, 600 years young, in volcanoe terms thats young. We hiked up to the top and checked out the crater pit, and then climbed down into some lava caves. On Tuesday morning we caught an early bus to the Waitomo caves. A popular tourist stop where we went black water rafting. This means we put on full piece wet suits, climbed down about 100m into a underground cave river and went tubing. The cave was full of glow worms. An amazing sight!
Our clothing is now jeans (of which we both just bought a pair) and t-shirts, and fleeces in the evening as it gets a little cool. So far the weather has been beautiful, clear and blue. Just one day of rain. Today we are in Rotoura and went to a place called the Agrodome, where we saw an awesome sheep shearing show, with tonnes of different sheep and all the sheep dogs hearding them up. Both Brent and I participated, being seated close up to the front. Brent tried to milk a cow for the first time and I fed a lamb. We were both very impressed and liked the hearding dogs.
We were at the grocery store today and are making dinner tonight for the first time in months. It's great! Tomorrow we are heading further south to Taupo for some more fun. New Zealand is the extreme adventure capital of the world with all sorts of fun adventurous things to do. We cant wait to do more.
Also, we booked a tour on April 8 of the south island for 7 days and then we've got our tickets to Australia on April 15.
Cheers and good luck to those starting exams and everyone one else at home for making it through the long winter. Miss everyone and well be home in a month today.
Michelle

Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 430
So here I will attempt to describe how incredible this experience actually was. Although words will not do this trip justice, I will try. The Gibbons Experience takes place in a nature reserve in the effort of promoting conservation and giving jobs to local villagers in Laos.
We arrived at the office in Huay Xai at 8am for a brief movie on safety during the experience. We then got in a truck and drove for about 1.5 hours on a newly paved, but very winding road. After that was a dirt road for another half an hour. This brought us to a small village at the base of some very large hills (I won't call them mountains exactly, but they were close) within the Bokeo Nature Reserve. At this point we still did not really know what was in store for us. We had an idea of some hiking, and some zip lining, but nothing compared to what was actually in store. We left in a group of 8 people, plus 2 guides. The initial hike took about 2-3 hours, mostly on an incline as we needed to be high enough to access the canopy. During that 2-3 hours, we stopped to get our harnesses and another briefing about safety and what actually to expect. Shortly after the break, we reached the first zip line, and off we went, one at a time across the gully to the other side. We were 30-50 metres above the ground, clearing trees, flying ABOVE the canopy to another platform on the other side. The feeling is indescribable. The views were amazing and we couldn't help but let out a huge WEEEEEE (or in Michelle's case a giggle) on each zip. After a few more zips and some more uphill trekking we reached the first treehouse, where we were to spend the first night. Ziiip, in we went to a wooden treehouse (essentially a grown up tree fort) about 35 metres above the ground. The only way in and out was through the use of the zip wires, so needless to say we spent considerable time going in and out, getting familiarized with the system. After the first zip, the guides basically let us go on our own and gave no more help. It was very liberating, but a little scary.
Nighttime in a treehouse in the middle of the jungle is not all that exciting, but enjoyable a we had a good group of people (all about our age). We played cards all night, and went to bed around 10. The treehouse was equipped with a toilet (that simply drained below into the trees), running water (suitable for drinking, from a natural spring), and food and snacks that seemed endless (coming from the "kitchen" which was down on the ground, a short zip away). The next morning we got up early to go "animal watching", which turned out to be almost a jog through the jungle in which we didn't see any animals. Then after breakfast we packed up and headed out in search of our next destination, another treehouse with a waterfall nearby. It was another long hike (2-3 hours), but was broken up by several amazing zips! The longest of which was about 500 metres. This translates into about 1 full minute of flying. It was the slightly shorter 400 metre zip which took the cake as the most exhilerating experience of the trip. It was extremely high up, with views of the entire gully below. A river down to the right, trees as far as the eye can see, and a view of one of the treehouses from above down to the left...INCREDIBLE. We then took a swim in the waterfall ponds (quite cold, but nice) and had some lunch. After settling in to our second treehouse, we took advantage of some free time and zipped around for about 2 hours with a couple other tourists, but no guides. This was the best part of the experience by far. So much freedom, and excitement, and above all pure fun! At night we had some dinner, hot drinks and chatted with the others by candlelight. There was no running water in this treehouse, but there will be in the next few days as the project is growing.
During the night I (Brent) became quite ill for a still unknown reason and vomitted numerous times over the side of the treehouse. I had the shakes, a serious pain in my stomach and was generally unwell. Nobody else in our group of 8 was affected. This made the morning a little more difficult for me, but Michelle took good care of me, and it turned out to be ok. We had a nice slow, downward hike in the rain for 2-3 hours again, which brought us back to the village to wait for the trucks.

Overall, the zipping was one of the coolest things I have ever done, and although we did not manage to see any Gibbons Monkeys (hence the name, Gibbons Experience), this was a fantastic time for both of us. As far as conservation efforts goes, this is a good program as it gives jobs to otherwise jobless Lao people, and provides some support for a nature reserve that is threatened by logging and poor agricultural practices.

It is doubtful that anything else we do on this trip will be as enjoyable as this, but thats ok because these memories and experiences will fulfill us for a long time to come.

From here we are travelling through Laos a little bit (locations T.B.D.) before heading back to Bangkok for our flight to New Delhi, India on March 5.

-Brent