Paragliding

  Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand
Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sun 31 Aug

8:00
AM - Up early again as usual, I looked out the window and I took some
nice shots of the mountains behind Lake Tekapo with the sunrise
lighting them up. There were also flocks of birds that I took shots of
as well, probably boring when I see them later though, but this macro
lens is amazing.

8:30 AM - We get our stuff ready and head
downstairs for breakfast. They have the most amazing kitchen, with a
huge 10-15 ft granite island lined with cereals, toast, jam, and fruit
for us to eat while Pete made Lu eggs benedict, and scrambled for me,
along with fresh orange juice and coffee, I totally scarfed down
everything. Pete politely commented on my huge appetite later but I was
mostly being polite and wanted to finish everything I got. We talked
for a while, about work, politics, the b&b life, they are such nice
people which was a total relief after that one really awkward and scary
b&b experience we had in Maine with the right-wing, religious,
McCain supporters. After we paid our invoice behind another couple,
they also gave us a nice little bottle of local skin lotion that they
didn't give the other couple, so I know they liked us too.

9:30
AM - Once we left, we headed over to the Church of the Good Shepherd
again to see the structure in daylight, but it wasn't open yet and the
cleaning lady was still at work inside. So we headed off once again for
our last drive in NZ.

11:00 AM - Pete recommended we stop in
Geraldine for the NZ made souvenir shops and cheese factory but we were
totally disappointed since it was a tourist trap and a main stopping
point for tourist busses. So the sidewalk vendors were obviously a rip
off and a little shady.


1:00
PM - We arrive at our Holiday Inn City Centre in Christchurch,
literally right in the middle of pedestrian only streets and around the
corner from "The Cathedral", stores and cafes, so it was definitely a
good location. The city didn't have that much nice architecture, every
building was no more that a couple stories, maybe for earthquake
reasons, and mostly plain like everything was built in the 70s all at
the same time, maybe after an earthquake or something? The heaps of
internet centers and souvenir shops were too touristy too, and blocks
would actually literally be called tourist mall. It reminded me of the
pedestrian only quaintness of Malmo, Sweden, except Malmo was full of
cafes and stores that locals would go to, as opposed to here which were
Subways and KFCs. We walked around and I found this awesome store Nood,
like a smaller version of iKea but nicer stuff.

2:15 PM - We
were able to check in and valet our car just in time for our
paragliding guy to pick us up in the lobby. In the car was another guy
Chris, who would help him set up.


2:45
PM - It was probably a 30 minute drive to the beach, when they took the
opportunity to run down everything we had to do in a few short
sentences- I was hoping they'd repeat it once we had the gear on
though. Once we got there, they just started unloaded all the gear and
dragging it out onto the beach.


3:15
PM - Next thing you know, I'm strapped in and he's turning the
propeller on (since it wasn't windy enough to get any height), that was
strapped to his back while I stood in front of him. I also didn't know
I was supposed to hold his makeshift digital camera on a pole, so I was
nervous about only having one hand to hold onto the bar in front of me.
I had to do a 90 degree turn into the wind and then start high stepping
it, faster and faster, but I only took like 4 steps before we were
airborne! He used the propeller to climb higher and higher, until we
were about 1/4 mile away from where we left. It didn't feel like
anything but cold, so the adrenaline factor was still at a low so far.
I started scanning the waters for sharks too, but just saw crazy
surfers in the frigid water. We were up for about 10-15 min probably
when he turned back to where we took off, and climbed as high as he
could, about 1400 meters, or 4200 feet, and then shut off the engines!
Now we were in business, this is what we were paying for! The feeling
of somewhat free-fall, and the spinning side to side had the roller
coaster effect so it was worth it, but all I could think about was how
ridiculous my little body was randomly up so high in the vast sky right
then, just dangling around. I could see the whole city and even the
long mountain range that was probably a 2 hour drive west! Once we came
down for the landing, he still didn't prep me for what I was supposed
to do, but it seemed to be common sense, standing forward and get ready
to hit the ground running... but the landing was so smooth and slow,
there wasn't any running really.


3:45
PM - Next was Lu! He seemed to do everything right but he was a little
too heavy! He weighs at the max around 80kg so the propeller was really
suffering on the way up that they almost needed to come right back down
but they caught the wind just right to go back up again. Once they were
up though, it looked like smooth sailing.

4:45 PM - Once we got
back we had our photos he let us print out right in his car, and a pair
of mugs. I didn't have enough cash because I couldn't remember if I had
prepaid this, so Lu had to jump out of the car to get money at the ATM.


6:30
PM - After freshening up, we went back out for a stroll through some
duty free gift shops that were still open surprisingly, through the
downtown, and out to where the european style canal was to the west of
the center. I had seen an ad in one of the guidebooks for the Belgian
Beer Cafe, which looked like a good place to eat dinner but I forgot to
get the address.


7:30
PM - So as we wandered around the canal, we saw a cool gothic monastery
looking stone restaurant that we decided to go into for dinner, and it
happened to be the street number 88, and was the Belgian Beer Cafe.
Then when we sat down, we heard a row of about 3 songs that were just
like what we had on our wedding playlist, one song by Beirut, one
French song, one Brazilian Jazz Astrud Gilberto song. Our waiter Jesse
was also really cool and down to earth and hung around for long
conversations with us, he's the one who told us about the fault line in
Tekapo when we asked about the earthquake. He also referred to a recent
Red Sox game too which we were ironically clueless about. So we ordered
expensive $13 beers, and a couple entrees (appetizers) to share,
mussels, scallops, garlic bread and Belgian pommes frites with mayo
sauce- my favorite guilty pleasure!