Lots of new experiences today. I kicked it off early with a 5 mile run around Lake Hayes with my roomate, Melissa. This is one of her favorite running courses and it was new to me, so I enjoyed it. I noticed a rope swing anchored from a tree that intend to investigate further. After we returned from the run I took off to pick up Cam, a friend from work. Cam is from Australia which reminds me I need to wish you all a happy belated Australia day. That's another new experience, I've never celebrated Australia Day. Of course, I didn't really celebrate it today, but I observed other people celebrating it. Anyway, Cam knew about this cliff jump a short distance outside of town so we headed in that direction. I parked Voodoo on a bend off the road and we followed a tight trail down to an open patch of earth overlooking the water. It was a solid 30 foot drop that required you to spring out about 4 ft. to clear the rocks below. In order to see the water I had to kind of tip-toe out to the ledge and look over. It was quite intense for me. I don't tell most people that I'm petrified of heights but I am. So Cam showed me where to start from and where to jump off from and then took a flying leap into the water. I watched him swim a few feet away and then followed suit. At first my only focus was clearing the rocks. It soon shifted to how my body would enter the water. I realized in mid-air that I was coming in at a bad angle, but couldn't really make any adjustments in time. I didn't completely flop, but I didn't exactly slice in with no splash either. I've got a nice little strawberry running from the backside of my leg on up my side to illustrate my graceful jump. However pain was mild compared to the reaction my body took from the water temperature. As soon as I submerged every muscle in my body contracted and I swear my lungs reduced 50% in size. I came up gasping for air as if I just done a round of suicides on the basketball court. My lungs were screaming for oxygen and not seeming to find any and my heartbeat could have been knocking trees down. I couldn't speak until I reached the shore and got out of the water. What a rush. I loved it, but opted not to take a second jump as I was already aware of the bruise forming on my side.
I returned to town around 12:30 and got some sun-bathing in my Queenstown Lake. It eventually got hot enough for me to take another swim. I just ran in from the share this time, but it was equally cold and I was quickly out of the water. I'm very happy to have swum twice today. Even though my water time was about 3 minutes total. I enjoyed beautiful weather during the afternoon in which I played a round of frisbee golf (frolf) followed by an ice cold Guiness at the Irish Pub. Later on that evening I had another new experience at Minus 5.
Rebecca, one of my new Queenstown friends, works at the famous "ice bar" and I went to check it out this everning (another new experience). http://www.minus5experience.com/
I will post my own pictures soon, but you can get an idea of the concept for now on this website. So everything in the ice bar is frozen. The glasses, the cash register, the shot glasses...All made of ice. It's really cool. Minus 5 provides you with gloves, boots and a huge jacket to go into the bar with. You can only go in for thirty minutes at a time and when you are finished you get to break your frozen glass. I found the drinks to go down really smooth in their. They were all vodka based fruit drinks.
And of course you can't have just one drink in Queenstown so I headed to Winnies for a few after that. Now I'm home closing out what has been a wonderful day off and trying to avoid the fact that I have to open tomorrow. Or even worse, that i need to get up and run before I open tomorrow....
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