Paragliding

(Mel) Just got back from my paragliding trip. Unfortunately the wind was too strong for me to jump from Coronet peak so had to do a slightly smaller one from a hill/mountain near Arrowtown half an hour away. Sounds like I am quite lucky though as the wind has been too strong for them to do any jumps in the last 3 days, they risked it with me though and we got a good ride. Was pretty cool floating and dipping around and checking out the mountains - it's such beautiful scenery here in Queenstown. Gliding wasn't scary at all except for the bit at the start where you have to run down and off the hill - very weird sensation. Kinda wish I had time to do a skydive now but I reckon I will do one if I get the opportunity again.

Yesterday we thought we'd be a bit cultured and went on a wine tour. Saw 4 different winerys/vineyards and tasted 17 different wines. Tasty stuff and interesting to learn about it all. Bought a couple of bottles to take home - hopefully we won't smash one like we did when we tried to bring one back from Italy after our honeymoon.

We're off up the mountain in a 'gondola' this afternoon - it's basically a cable car, dunno why they name it after an Italian punt!? We got a ticket that gives us 6 trips down on a 'luge' (kind of tobagan things) and are heading up with some of the others guys from the bus. One more night in Queenstown and then we're off to Christchurch for one day before heading to Hong Kong.