Friday Evening From Wanaka

Sorry for the two days of silence, but there was no internet at our last two inns.  Actually, I guess there was internet last night at our farm stay, but we had taken just a small overnight bag and the computer was left in our other luggage.
We just arrived in Wanaka, and it's already past dinner time (which we've not had as yet), so a complete rundown of Wednesday, Thursday and today will come later, except to say that Claira jumped out of an airplane this afternoon!  No, that is not a typo.  Trixie, Julian, and Claira took a sky diving plane up to 12,000 feet and did a 45 second free fall before opening the chute and descending the rest of the way.  It was one of those piggy back things where the instructor is attached to your harness and does all the important stuff, such as opening the chute.  She said she had no qualms about sliding out of the plane, but she was certainly excited when she landed.

Claira

Now backing up the clock:  As my last post Wednesday morning indicated, we were delaying departure from our B&B in Kokongo due to misty, rainy weather.  So, what do you do when you have unpleasant weather for bicycling?  You do something else, and that was to go curling.

Lillian

Rebecca

The weather did improve about noon and we all got on the bikes to continue our rail to trail journey, making it to Omakau, a small town, where our group was divided between two buildings.  It was nothing fancy, but clean and comfortable.  Dinner that evening was at the Omakau Hotel, where it just so happened that the Lion's Club was having dinner in the party room.  There were perhaps a dozen couples.  We weren't seated in the party room, but our buffet table was, and we got a lot of kidding from them when we went to get our main dishes, and later dessert.  They claimed we were eating their food.  So we all went in their room, lined up, and did a kick routine entertainment to "pay" them for letting us eat their buffet.  A good time was had by all, and perhaps we did our little bit to improve relations with the New Zealanders.

The Lion's Club Meets USA

And with that episode I'm going to close this posting.  It's past bedtime here.  Tomorrow, Rebecca, Scott, the girls and I are flying to Milford Sound while Susan stays here in Wanaka to do laundry and a little shopping.  We should be back by early afternoon.  We stay one more night here in Wanaka before heading further west, and I'll try to get in another posting.    Jim