Sweet, As!

Sweet, As! It's all you hear from the Kiwis. And to be honest today has been 'Sweet, As!'.

It started with a bit of a false start. My white water rafting trip had been cancelled (not enough people), so I switched to an afternoon trip (lots of people).

So I had a free morning. I mooched around the shops in Queenstown -- lots of very expensive outdoorsy stuff to buy as well as tourist tat!

The rafting trip, when I finally got to go on it was cool. The bus ride along Skipper's Canyon road was almost as exhillarating as the rafting. The road is one of only two in New Zealand where you're not covered by any kind of insurance! A very narrow, twisty road with sheer drops in to the valley floor. Pretty scary at times!

The rafting was good, but not as wild as I thought it would be. I think that might be because there were lots of calm parts between the severe rapids. Still there were enough hair raising bits (and plenty of reinforcement of the safety briefing from our guides).

The one thing that was different to my previous rafting trips was the water temperature. It was cold! The full wetsuit and booties might have been a hint to what I could expect. My feet were pretty numb by the end.

A good day had its finale with an excellent meal at a really good seafood restaurant. "Sweet, As!" indeed!