Sorry mom... I jumped

We bungy jumped off a bridge today! To be specific, the Kawarau Bridge (the world's FIRST bungy site!). Here's me as I'm leaving the platform.

And me flying through the air:

It was awesome! We went there first thing this morning. They have two platforms to jump from and I was the first jumper for my platform. I never thought I would bungy jump. I was never really that interested in it and I thought it would hurt your back. But we went to watch some of the jumpers yesterday and it looked like fun, so we signed up for this morning! Matt jumped a few minutes after I did. I got almost as nervous watching him jump. He didn't buy his photos so I don't have his. Jack took a video of both of us but it's too big to upload right now over this slow wifi. But it was so fun and in a gorgeous location. Definitely recommend!

Here's a video!

Then we drove south to Te Anau. We grabbed some food and went grocery shopping before checking into our hotel. We get to stay here THREE nights. That's a record, guys. I feel like we've moved in. I'm excited to stay in one place for a few nights so we don't have to pack up every morning. Our room is okay, nothing too special except the view faces Lake Te Anau, which is the second largest lake in New Zealand (by surface area). Yay for lake-front rooms!

Then we went down to the tourist info center and the craziest thing happened. We ran into the same couple from Madison, WI that we flew with to Auckland! They live only a couple of minutes from where we (used to) work and they were on our same flights from Chicago to San Fran and on to Auckland. We hung out with them quite a bit during our delays in Chicago so we got to know them fairly well. The other crazy thing is that they are going to be in Iceland the same time we are, too!! But anyway, I still can't believe that we just randomly ran into them on the sidewalk in Te Anau. They were literally just taking a walk around the lake and happened to be right in front of the tourist center as we pulled up. What are the odds?! We (finally) exchanged emails and took a picture together, since I'm pretty sure they are Matt and I's travel soul mates.

Then we went for what we thought was going to be a short 45 min round trip hike by the lake, but it turned out to be an hour each way so 2 hours total. Oh well, it was a little more than we bargained for but that's okay since we didn't have anything else going on. Jack and I jumped in the lake afterwards to cool off. And by that I mean Jack jumped in and I went up to my knees since it was cold. I let the little minnows swim around my feet. Like all the water in New Zealand, the water was really clear.

Then we turned in early in order to do some travel planning in the room for when we get to Australia. We just had a simple sandwich dinner in the room. Tomorrow we get to take a cruise through Milford Sound!