March 28, 1998
Subject:  The Last Leg

Hey everyone,

Well, this is my last day.  In about 7 hours my plane lifts off to take me 
back to North America.

From where I left off...

Thursday morning I got up in Queenstown and wandered over to NZ Shred where 
the guys from Sky Trek took me up to Coronet Peak and strapped me into a hang 
glider.  It was a tandem flight, but I got to do some controlling.  Knowing 
me, I started doing roller coasters at which point the instructor asked me if 
I want to have some "real fun".  Of course I did.  We did a 100m freefall 
dive followed by two wingovers.  It was amazing.

That afternoon, I went with the guys from Mad Dog to do some white water 
surfing on a little boogie board.  I didn't realize how exhausting it was 
avoiding rocks, getting out of whirlpools, etc.  We topped it off with a 
40 foot cliff jump, at which point I remembered my humungous fear of heights 
while looking down.

The following morning we were off to Mt. Cook, New Zealand's highest peak 
12,500 feet.  A couple of us went for a 2 hour hike.  It was amazing.  It 
kinda looked like the beginning of a Paramount movie.

The next day we pulled into Christchurch and had one big shakeup last night 
since I was leaving the group this morning.

This morning I hopped on the plane to Auckland.  We had to get out soon, 
because a cyclone was about to hit the coast.  As soon as we took off, we 
were battered with 100km/h winds.  Now, I LOVE turbulence in a plane, but 
this was a little too much for me.  It's a little scary when you're landing 
(stopover in Wellington), and there's still water under you and you hear the 
engines scream to full power when you're only about 20 or 30 feet above the 
water.  Needless to say, I'm safe and waiting around here in Auckland.  I 
came downtown, but I'm not really in the mood to do any more touring.  Guess 
I just wait until my plane takes off.  Then it's 12 hours to LA, 8 hours wait, 
5 hours to Toronto, then 1 hour back home.  I should arrive in Ottawa at 7:55 
am Monday morning, and back to work by 8:00 am (Yah, right!!!).

For those of you who have written me, thanks very much.  You can all now 
switch back to my regular account, "saxer@nortel.ca", since I won't be 
checking this one anymore.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Rob