Wilderness Safari in Mount Aspiring National Park.

One of the many huge rocks in the river which our expert driver narrowly avoided as we screamed in terror!
A brief lull before we spun off again.


The view from inside a 900 year old red beech.

Inside the red beech.
The river bed of the Dart over which we bumped.

The road to Paradise.

OUr 4WD terrain.
Pig Island in front and Pigeon Island behind - islands in Lake Wakatipu.


Views on the journey to Glenorchy.


We have had a most exciting day! We woke to a beautiful bright morning - this had not been forecast - and decided to take advantage of the weather by doing a safari in Mount Aspiring National Park. This involved a coach journey around the west of Lake Wakatipu as far as Glenorchy - a beautiful journey on a beautiful day as you can see from the photos. At Glenorchy we boarded our 4WD safari vehicle for our very bumpy tour over dirt tracks and the Dart river bed. All of this is in the area where many scenes from Lord of the Rings were
shot as well as many, many other films and TV ads. The inhabitants of Paradise make their living from the films etc. shot in the area. We then had a guided walk through ancient native Beech forest, where Jim and others couldn't resist getting into a tree. Finally, the highlight of the day - our jet boat jouney through the (ever-changing, we were told) shallow channels of the glacier fed Dart River back into Lake Wakatipu. This was, as the brochure said, complete with thrilling jet spins. When the driver signalled a spin we had to brace ourselves and hold on tight - I didn't have a hand left to stifle the screams so I just screamed. At one stage I had closed my eyes and opened them to see a wall of water that seemed about to engulf me but I'm still here to tell the tale! We had about 2 hours of this hair-raising adventure. Talking about hair, I have to prepare Brian and Carol for the spectacle of an almost bald Dad. The few he had on the top of his head are blowing in the wind and he is left with a few tufts around the ears which bravely hung on. I had an interesting Jedward-like style at the end but it gradually subsided to simply a very bad hair day. It was an amazing experience - the jet boating in itself - but the most fantastic thing was the spectacular scenery in which it took place. We are still deciding which day we preferred - today on the Dart or yesterday in Milford Sound.

To keep up this type of excitement I suppose we will have to do a bungee jump or a sky dive. Kathleen would probably recoomend a sky dive!