Well, we can officially say we’ve jumped off a mountain! We ended up going paragliding (which up until this week we weren’t even sure what paragliding actually was) and it was an amazing experience!

First of all, Queenstown really encourages you to jump off stuff. Skydiving, bungee jumping, hang gliding, the list goes on. It’s basically a hub for adrenaline rushes.

That being said, Tristan and Taylor have two things in common: FOMO (fear of missing out) and FOH (fear of heights ->yes we made up the acronym).

We were in an interesting predicament. The thought of jumping off anything made us both nauseas and feel like we needed to change our underwear… but we also couldn’t miss out on doing something adventurous in such a cool place. So we opted for a happy medium (in our opinion) and went paragliding.

We cannot recommend this experience enough (and the wonderful guys at Coronet Peak Tandem Paragliding!). It was definitely a little… unique… to be told to run straight towards the edge of a 2,500 foot drop but once you are in the air it’s spectacular and oddly peaceful. Until we started doing high speed spins towards the ground (since Tristan just HAD to sign us up for the one on the pamphlet labeled “acrobatic”). But we survived, and with some huge smiles on our faces!

After Queenstown, we drove northeast towards Mount Cook, which is the highest peak in New Zealand. There was a moment in the van when we weren’t sure if we wanted to make the 45 minute detour but we are SO glad we did.

Mount Cook way in the back:

Views from our binoculars:

Mount Cook is about 11,000 feet and is located in the southern alps. Pictures cannot do justice to its magnitude or even begin to show how it feels to be in her presence. We went for a 2.5 hour hike up to one of the ridge lines and had some pretty insane views of the entire mountain range including some massive glaciers.

The entire walk was up these stairs made of wood and gravel, which was honestly more strenuous than your average hiking trail because it was basically like doing a stair master for 2 straight hours. Our legs were actually shaking when we go to the bottom!

The drive away from Mount Cook:

Then we headed another hour down the road to Lake Tekapo, which is a small lake town in the Mackenzie region and known for its stargazing. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and the moon was super bright so we could hardly see any stars. On the plus side, we camped next to a lovely brother and sister from London, Fred and Daisy, and spent the evening chatting and laughing. We missed the stars but made some friends. So Lake Tekapo wasn’t a total loss!

All in all, we’re doing well. Slightly homesick, but glad to be here. Until next time, love and hugs from New Zealand!

-T&T