Lakes, Queenstown, and jumping off mountains! (Steve)

Following our visit to Christchurch, we headed south towards Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook. The stunning scenery on the way made for a great drive and I am so pleased we came to New Zealand, the place is awesome in its beauty and I can see why its getting more popular every year.

Lake Tekapo is an aqua blue lake surrounded by mountains of the Mt Cook range (NZ's highest peak at 3715 metres I think), with the bizarre Church Of The Good Shepherd on the edge of it all on its own, the view looking towards the alter is the mountains behind the lake, really cool. They also getting the southern Aurora about 6 times a year, we didnt see that but I stole a photo from a local photographer with it above the church (see below). We also drove up as near to Mt Cook as we could, but didnt have time to climb it, not sure we could've anyway......and the huge, 42km long Lake Pukaki makes Tekapo look small, they are so smooth that when the sun comes out they are like mirrors reflecting the mountains, photos dont really do it justice.

The next day we went on to Queenstown, the adrenaline capital of NZ, and purely designed for the tourists,the worlds first bungy site is here, along with many others, we opted for the easier option of a jump off a mountain attached to a paraglider and someone who knows what they are doing. We jumped through the clouds from Mt Coronet (about 1100 metres) and took off for a brilliant ride across 5kms of woods and hillsides, we managed to kick the tops of some trees in a truely environment-friendly way!! I even got to do some acrobatics as we desended. Shame we can't post movies on here as they are funny, but pictures are below. We wanted to go again but money was a tad tight. The rest of Queenstown wasn't nearly as exiting, we went up a near vertical cable car and had a go at the 'Luge' -like go-karting but downhill without an engine, which was cool. Oh, and some great views of Queenstown as well.