Last day in Queenstown

I have a cold. I've actually had it since Fiji. Seriously, I might be the only person I know who can catch a cold in tropical climates. I have the immune system of a 95 year old.

Anyway, so after sleeping 14 different places in the last 16 nights. (That's right. I counted.) My cold hasn't really had the chance to recover and go away and this morning, it finally all caught up with me. I did NOT feel good. So, I spent much of my morning lounging in Starbucks and doing some reading as Laura meandered around Queenstown.

However, as the afternoon approached we both decided we wanted to do one more Queenstown-ish adrenaline junkie kind of thing. So, we opted for something called jet boating. I'd never heard of this before, but apparently it's pretty popular over here. Basically, it is a small boat that can run in about 6 inches of water and goes extremely fast and makes sharp turns. They put it in a river in a canyon and then you go flying down the canyon while your driver whips around doing 360s in the water and you cling on for dear life. There are about 8 or 9 people in the boat.

The canyon itself is really like nothing I've ever seen. It looks like something in Disney World with blue, blue water, massive rock walls and random waterfalls. Our driver, Phil, was a very kind Kiwi who seemed fairly intent on killing me. I say "me" there because Laura and I ended up on the front of the boat with Phil. Laura was in the middle, Phil was on the left and I was on the right. Phil's inclination seemed to be to be to ram the right side of the boat into a jagged edge of the canyon while going about 60 miles an hour. Afterwards an Australian man came up to ask me how close I thought I'd gotten to hitting a rock.

Too close.

It was tons of fun though and so beautiful. We got sprayed a few times with lots of river water as we spun across the rocks, but that was about as dangerous as it ever got. But, that, in combination with my cold and Laura's general tiredness, was enough to wear us out for the day and we headed back to our dorm for a late afternoon nap.

While this pretty much makes us grandmas by Queenstown standards, I couldn't have been happier. Actually, the only thing that made me happier today was the purchase of cough medicine, cough drops and extra klennex. Now that's what I call exciting stuff.