We were fortunate enough to enjoy a visit from friends last week. Mary and Julie got on a plane in Cincinnati, bounced over to San Francisco, then to Auckland, and then finally to our new home: Dunedin, gloomy and gray, sitting solidly at the edge of the rainy green plains of Otago. Dunners! And there they were at the airport, fresh-faced, eager and ready to go at 9am on a bright and sunny Sunday morning, like visitors from another planet, or a past life.
We've been here nearly 8-months and we've adapted to our new lives here.
But it was very nice to see familiar faces. Friends, standing here in the fields of Dunedin, among the sheep and cows. Not mispronouncing all their vowels. Wearing shoes. It's like an optical illusion.
And you know what? They said it wasn't even really all that painful. All that was really expected of them was that they sit quite still for several hours in a big metal tube. And they arrived. We showed them all around Dunedin, all our favorite places, all our new haunts. That took care of the first afternoon. Kidding. Sort of.
We had lots of fun while they were here and even managed to fit in a weekend driving through the vineyards and orchards of central Otago to the mountains and the deep glacial lakes of Queenstown. And so to the meat of this blog entry: Mary's bungy jump. On Saturday afternoon, we pulled over and parked near the Kawarua gorge to watch crazy tourists jumping off a bridge, falling like rocks, 43-meters, to the churning glacier-fed Kawarua River, cold and aerated after its steep journey down from the mountains of the southern Alps.
Skinny ones.
Young ones.
Asian Ones.
Fat ones.
Falling.
F
a
l
l
i
n
g.
And then the next day, Mary announced, quite matter-of-factly, that she wanted to throw herself -- her own body -- off a bridge. Were we supposed to facilitate this? What are the legal ramifications? Falling through all that air. Was she angry about something? Did she not like New Zealand? Or perhaps she just really liked falling? Who knows? She signed some paperwork. She got weighed. She walked onto the bridge and got strapped up. She stood on the edge of a platform, looking out over the river and the canyon walls that form the gorge. She looked a little pale. She fake-jumped a couple of times -- an indication that her knees were more sensible than her brain. And then she jumped. And fell. And bounced. And fell again. And bounced again. And survived.
It was a good day.
(Click on the images if you want a close-up view of what batpoop crazy looks like).
But it was very nice to see familiar faces. Friends, standing here in the fields of Dunedin, among the sheep and cows. Not mispronouncing all their vowels. Wearing shoes. It's like an optical illusion.
And you know what? They said it wasn't even really all that painful. All that was really expected of them was that they sit quite still for several hours in a big metal tube. And they arrived. We showed them all around Dunedin, all our favorite places, all our new haunts. That took care of the first afternoon. Kidding. Sort of.
We had lots of fun while they were here and even managed to fit in a weekend driving through the vineyards and orchards of central Otago to the mountains and the deep glacial lakes of Queenstown. And so to the meat of this blog entry: Mary's bungy jump. On Saturday afternoon, we pulled over and parked near the Kawarua gorge to watch crazy tourists jumping off a bridge, falling like rocks, 43-meters, to the churning glacier-fed Kawarua River, cold and aerated after its steep journey down from the mountains of the southern Alps.
Skinny ones.
Young ones.
Asian Ones.
Fat ones.
Falling.
F
a
l
l
i
n
g.
And then the next day, Mary announced, quite matter-of-factly, that she wanted to throw herself -- her own body -- off a bridge. Were we supposed to facilitate this? What are the legal ramifications? Falling through all that air. Was she angry about something? Did she not like New Zealand? Or perhaps she just really liked falling? Who knows? She signed some paperwork. She got weighed. She walked onto the bridge and got strapped up. She stood on the edge of a platform, looking out over the river and the canyon walls that form the gorge. She looked a little pale. She fake-jumped a couple of times -- an indication that her knees were more sensible than her brain. And then she jumped. And fell. And bounced. And fell again. And bounced again. And survived.
It was a good day.
(Click on the images if you want a close-up view of what batpoop crazy looks like).
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