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Cancel the Wedding, Grab the Bike
One Woman's Journey Down Paradise "Rode" By Amy Montemarano
We pedaled to the toes of the Franz Josef glacier and then took a helicopter ride to the top where we had a snowball fight. A half-day's ride later, we were in a steamy rainforest. The trees were huge and gnarled with bark that looked like torn strips of old newspaper. Hugging their trunks were tangled masses of wide rubbery leaves, palms and ferns. We rode past endlessly blue lakes and saw black swans with white-tipped wings.
We were delighted by the Kiwi vernacular, which is spiked with lighthearted and clever expressions. The standard reply to a polite "How are you?" is, "Good as gold!" What's "cool" to Americans is "choice!" to Kiwis. A hot cup of morning coffee is "magic!" Bottles of beer are "stubbies" and cans are "tinnies," which are popular with the weekend "boaties." A Styrofoam cooler was, appropriately, a "chilly-bin." Once when Rich gave a store clerk exact change, the response: "Champion!"
We rode into Queenstown in the afternoon on the 10th day. We had just spent the past two days dallying through tranquil orchard country, gorging on sun-toasted fruit. Queenstown was quite a transition.
It is a rocket-fast town nestled in the foothills of mountains called the Remarkables, with the wonderfully moody Lake Waktipu at its center. The city aptly proclaims itself the "Adventure Capital of the World." The day before our wedding, we signed up for the popular Triple Adventure: a jet boat ride on the Shotover River, a helicopter ride upriver and then white-water rafting the Class V rapids back into town. Any pre-wedding jitters that I may have had were lost in the buzz.
And then the wedding.
Rich and I had just spent 10 days together – really together. No rushing around, no work, no daily grind. The time we had spent riding over long stretches of road taught us a lot about each other and ourselves that we never would have made time for in our hurried, harried lives back home. We relaxed and enjoyed each day, so that by the time the ceremony came around we were serene.
Wonderful Wedding