Thursday 20th November. Another glorious day and if Iwere writing a novel you would say that the next episode is too far fetched to be believed. We start the day with a quick gallop around the little local museum that tells of the lifeinArrowtown in the pioneering days of panning for gold in the river Arrow that runs behind the town. The main street has been restored to reflect how it looked long ago. We thendrive the few kms to Queenstown on the shore of Lake Wakatipu - an attractive thriving town being the centre of all the mad Kiwi outdoor activities. For $565 you can do a Skydive, ride a Jet boat through the Shotover river canyon, take a helicopter flight over Skipper Canyon and white water raft down the river Shotover Rapids. If bungy jumping is your thing the Nevis high wire at 134 metres is a must. Moored at the town quay is the America's Cup yacht NZL 14 and as I am giving it the once over and chatting to a crew member who has just returned from six months working on the boats at Spinnaker Quay in Portsmouth who should walk up behind me but Roy and Helen Scott from theEmswoth Slipper SC. Shouts of 'I don't believe it' but best of all over cups of coffee we compare notes and discover that they have been following in our footsteps a day behind us and have experienced exactly the same husband and wife stand off at the same spot on their travels. He wants to take her on a helicopter trip over the glacier but she can't face it etc.etc. We have a great laugh about it and I suggestthat we would all get on better if Roy and I went off and did our own thing so that Marilyn and Helen can go and do girlie things. 'What a good idea' says Roy. 'How do you fancy the Shotover Jet Boat ride?' 'Do bears shit in the woods?' say I and the rest you can guess. Within an hour or sowe are on the bus out to the river bwhere we are kitted out with spay coats and life jackets. We have the most thrilling ride you could ever imagine. The boats are quite small - 14 passengers and the driver (mad kiwi but brilliant) Twin engines giving 500HPand will run in 4 inches of water. It rockets through the narrow canyon missing the rocks byinches and the star turn is a 360 spin. The whole operation is very slick and by the time we get ashore and take off our coat and life jacket the onboard computer has downloaded to te shoreside computer a video of our run so that we can buy a CD of our ride before boarding the bus to return to town. Have taken lots of pictures/video but not all have 'come out' as we used to say in the days of film. It would seem that in my excitement I forgot to press the right button but if you want to see what its like go to the web site www.shotoverjet.com

The cruise down Milford Sound we have planned for tomorrow will be small beer after today. To save us the long drive out to Milford and back - round trip of 600kms in one day we decide to drive this evening to Te Anau (half way) and take a coach toMilford