Day 9 Queenstown

Queenstown is a 4 season resort town in the middle of the beautiful New Zealand mountains. It is the adventure sports capital of the country, maybe the world. It is a clean, pretty town with good shopping, good restaurants and multiple accommodations. The permanent population is about 30,000 but it has a holiday pop. of 100,000.

We awoke to a dreary, rainy day. We had resv. at noon to para glide. They picked us up downtown, we went up the mountain, hearts pumping, excited about the idea of flying. Oh no, it was raining and we couldn't see the valley below. No jump. We went back to town, had lunch, really good mac and cheese for me. Went back to the room, David took a nap, I caught up on the blog. 3:30 we got a call the rain has stopped, it's a go if you want to. "You bet, can you pick us up at our B&B?" "Sure, what's the address?"
We went off at about 5:00. It was overcast, it was cold, but the wind was blowing up the valley and creating lift off the mountain. We flew!, Like a bird, we flew. We were up for at least 30 min. What a thrill. Have you ever seen a seagull float on the wind and say, "I wish I could do that"? We did that! My pilot, Mark has done this around the world and I was totally confident in his capability. He is the epitome of the Kiwi adventure sport enthusiast. I would highly recommend Elevation Paragliding if you want to fly.

We got back, and went to town for dinner. Our Paragliding pilots recommended a gourmet pizza place called Winnie's for dinner. It was good and it was the hippest place in town. It had the prettiest NZ women we had seen and the roof hydraulically opened and closed.

When we got back I settled up with John at Chalet Queenstown and he told me I put some sandwiches in your fridge for your early departure tomorrow. I left my card, saying check out Hibiscus and our blog and thanking him again for his hospitality.