Skydiving

No. I didn't dare to perform such stunt while in New Zealand. Just that we went and watched our tour mates skydive in Lake Tekapo and it was fun to watch the video together and laughed at the silly faces and expressions while falling from the sky.

The photos I managed to capture here are those when the parachute was opened and they were gliding down to the landing spot. I love how the parachutes contrast nicely against the clear blue sky. If you asked me whether I regret not doing the skydiving while there, I had a bit of tiny regrets though. Should have spend that money while I am still brave enough to do such extreme activities. Oh..it's not the money, it's the age factor, haha.

Jumping Jumping

I was looking through my New Zealand photos for the photobook and can't help but noticed that during the whole trip, we took a lot of jumping photos. As most of the time, I was behind the camera, the models are usually my two friends. Most of the jumping photos shown in my Facebook are the good takes while in actual fact we had to take numerous shots to perfect the best jump.

So here are some of the NGs of the jumping shots. Beware, many of these are really bad but they bring back good memories and the fun we had while executing and mastering the art of jumping. Haha.

Queenstown

Wanaka

On the way to South Bay

Pacific Ocean

Braving the Hailstorm at Franz Josef

It was raining non stop from the time we reached Franz Josef for dinner. We stayed in a quiet town with only 2 streets and the weather wasn't looking good for our hike to the glacier tomorrow. In fact, we had been told by our guide that most likely we will not get to hike the glacier. I was really dissapointed to hear that as this was one of the things in my bucket list that I am dying to do.

Hygi suggested for us to go for quad biking but being the super kiam Asians, we decided not to go ahead. We manage to see the glacier from a distance in the early morning before the hailstorm struck. It was also the first time I was stuck in the middle of the storm with no way to hide but to keep walking in the open area towards the parking. And the three of us were drenched from head to toe as I was too busy protecting my camera and not my pants. Lesson learnt, next time must wear water proof pants and not jeans if a storm is approching.

As we didn't sign up for the quad biking, we decided to do our laundry and we spent the entire evening trying to dry our clothes. This remained the funniest experience ever as the three of us were running around changing coins and 'chupping' the washing machine and dryer to dry our clothes. It took us 6 times to dry our clothes using the dryer as we made a mistake of loading too much at once, again blame on the kiam attitude of three accountants/auditors.

Even that, our clothes were not fully dried and we resort to let it air dry or rather heater dry in our room while we went out for dinner at one of the pub for the cheap food, again due to our kiamness. We tried to run away when we saw our tourmates coming as we didn't want to play the snooker but it was too late. We had to finish or at least try to make one ball fall into the hole. I totally sucks at snooker or any other games that required eye, hand and feet coordination!

Mount John Observatory @ Lake Tekapo, New Zealand

Hyge, our guide suggested that we followed to see some of our tourmates skydiving and brought us to the Mount John observatory to kill some time. As soon as three of us saw the lake from the top of the mountain, we shouted Tibet as the colour of the lake is so similar to Lake Namtso in Tibet, calm blue greenish colour.

It's only after that, I got to know that this place is famous for star gazing at night. In fact, it is one of the famous spot in New Zealand and many star gazers come here for that purpose.

We spent some time here taking photos and admiring the view from the top.

It's Lupin Everywhere

It's the first time I saw such beautiful wild flowers during my travel. At first, I even thought these flowers are planted and not wild. It turns out that these are wild flowers and the locals even tried to get rid off these flowers.

We were lucky to be in New Zealand during the peak of the lupin season. The whole of Lake Tekapo is covered with the wild flowers making the scenary even more beautiful. From what I read, the peak of the blooming of these flowers is during first two weeks in December, which is the summer month in the Southern atmosphere.

Paragliding Over Queenstown, New Zealand

Whee..I am flying

Technically, I didn't paraglide over Queenstown town area but from Coronet peak, which is around half and hour from the town. It's actually a long story as after our guide, Hyge dropped us at the peak of the Queenstown gondola and we happily waiting for our turn to paraglide. I was quite sceptical in the first place as I have major motion sickness and some fear of height. And when they told us that the wind was too strong to fly, I was quite happy to have the activity cancelled. But since they relocated to Coronet Peak to fly, I had to go ahead.

It was a tandem paragliding and the four of us including Lin, were put with a partner who controlled the glide. I got myself a Venezualean guide who kept asking me whether I am ok and kept saying the view is beautiful. Actually deep down in my heart, I think my heart almost fell out once we kicked off from the hill. I practically had to run to start flying and it was really scary. After getting used to the height, wind and fear, I began to enjoyed the view. Too bad, the guide behind me started to be funny and tried to fly higher and doing some acrobatic moves. I can feel my motion sickness kicked in and yet my guide kept doing his spin. Sigh, until I had to resort to blackmailing him that I am going to vomit in the sky, that he finally stopped spinning and looking for the spot to land. Pheww....

But the view from the top is amazing and the feeling of wind rushing through felt good. If someone ask me whether I would recommed this activity, I will say yes. It's a very good experience if you can't take bungee jump or skydiving.

For information, we flew with G Force Paragliding in Queenstown. There is a counter at the top.

Strapped on

I getting dizzy

When are we going down?