Checked out and back on the bus, we headed a couple of km's out of Wanaka, opposite Mt. Iron and arrived at 'Puzzling World', which is a 'world' of holograms, puzzles and illusions. We saw snooker balls rolling up hill, a room which destorted size and a 3D maze, which takes about an hour to complete (we ran out of time).

Next was a brief stop at a small fruit & veg market to pick up some bits. It also sold ice cream, which most people on the bus went for but we actually didn't get any this time and opted for the fruit and veg instead.

Our third and final stop before arriving into Queenstown itself was at the Kawarau Bridge, the home of the bungy jump. The bridge is the site of the first commercial bungy jump in the world and where people can still throw themselves 43m, off today. This is also where you pay for the Nevis Bungy jump, located at a different site near Queenstown, this was the bungy jump I had decided to do!

After checking into our hostel, which was a nice little one, we did little with our first evening as the next day was the day that I was to bungy.

It was a beautiful, mainly clear day the following morning and it hit me as soon as we woke up, today was the day of the bungy. Now I decided that I was going to do a bungy jump all the way back in England when we were planning our trip, but back then it was so long away it didn't particularly feel real, however time had caught up with us and the day had arrived.

We were told to be at the AJ Hackett bungy office (one of the guys who invented bungy) in town at ten to one, so after a morning of excitment, nerves and Belle laughing at me, we made our way to the office, where I was weighed and told to wait to be called. We were about half an hour later and proceeded to board a bus which would take us all the way up to the Nevis bungy site.

The Nevis bungy site is about a 45 minute bus ride out of town, where you then turn off onto a private farm and follow a track slowly up a steep track. Now obviously I have thought about the bungy long before the day and I was pretty scared thinking about it, but it was only when driving off road up a steep track in a bus that I suddenly thought to myself "what the f*** am I doing!?" Im not sure if it was the nerves or a sudden moment of realisation of what I was about to do but it hit me.

We arrived at the summit of the track, where me and Belle were put into harness' (Belle although not jumping was coming to watch and therefore needed to wear a harness) and made our way out towards the bungy. It was here where we got to see the Nevis in full. A small 'pod' is suspended 134m above a canyon, only accessible by a small, rickety cable car, which we soon boarded. The journey across to the 'pod' from the safety and security of solid ground was a wierd one, with the nerves and excitment growing the closer we got. As soon as we arrived at the 'pod' people were already throwing themselves out of it and just as my feet were strapped up with the safety gear, my number was called. It was with a heart rate of about 180, that I made my way into a chair, with my legs raised so they could attach the bungy cord to my feet, do the last safety checks and explain how to release my feet when I had stopped bouncing. With the last checks done and the bungy cord attached, it was time to shuffle my way over to the edge and little tiny, square piece of metal I was to jump off.

Stood at the edge, I was pretty bloody nervous but told mmyself that I wouldn't look down before jumping, just at the horizon. This lasted all of about 10 seconds, although very high it didn't look as high as I thought, plus with the glass panels in the 'pod' floor, I couldn't help but look down.

"5,4,3,2,1...BUNGY" was my que to learn forward, look at the horizon and fling myself into a 134m free fall for 8 seconds before the cord kicked in and slowed me down, flung me up back towards where I came from and then back towards the ground. When I actually jumped it was a very wierd feeling, not one that I can really put in words, it all happend so quickly and before I knew it had released my feet and was now in a sitting position genlty bouncing, I feel my voice went up a pitch when I first released my legs. I was then winched back up to the 'pod', watching the creek bed disapear from under me. It was with a little bit of relief set foot back inside and that was that, the months of nerves and it was all over in about a minute, a very sureal experience!

With the buzz of adrenaline and relief (that I was still alive) we headed back on the bus and 45 mninutes later, we got dropped off at the office. We took a stroll round town and then got something to eat and ate it sat by the lake. Belle went for her new favourite dish, Sushi, Belle is very greatful to Jan (the farmers wife in Australia) for introducing her to this. Before heading back to the hostel we stopped at a pub for a quick drink, where tap beers and wine were very cheap as they had a promotion on promoting 'movember.'

After getting back to the hostel and chilling out for a bit, we finally thought about getting some dinner. With everything that we had done in the day, we had completely lost track of time and it was now half past nine. We had decided earlier in the day that we were going to get a 'Ferg Burger' that evening (famous in New Zealand) and despite the time we went for it. Ferg Burger's a very popular in New Zealand and carry a bit of a legendery status, which means the shop is always really busy. As we walked down to get ours (at 9:35pm) we at least thought our late dinner would mean Ferg would be less busy, how wrong we were! When we arrived there was still a queue and it was still out of the door. We were by no means going to be defeated by this though and joined the back of the queue.

I went for a burger called 'Tropical Swine' (beef, bacon, cheese, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, onion, aioli & relish) while Belle went for 'Southern Swine' (beef, bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion, avacado, aioli & relish). When we collected our burgers and found a seat outside we discovered that what people had told us about the size of the burgers was not an exageration, as we were met with burgers the size of Belle's face. We are glad to report that we were not let down on the taste side either, beautiful. Sufficiently full, we strolled back to the hostel.

After a pretty busy day, our next day in Queenstown was quite the opposite, it was a day to plan and organise. As we know knew our exact itinerary for the rest of our time in New Zealand we wanted to book all our accommodation, the sooner the better.

Belle set about doing this (as she like to have things under control) while I had some breakfast. She got most things sorted but was struggling to find accommodation in Dunedin, the last place on our 'Road Trip'. We have saved some money to hire a car for a week and journey down to the proper South of the South Island. We had 3 stops and Belle had already booked the other 2 when we encountered a problem with the last. As we took turns in studying Hostel World and ringing any free phone numbers we could we both became quite disheartened when there were no vacancies or places were far too expensive. We eventually learnt the reason why... Elton John!! He was in town performing in their new stadium and all the hostels were fully booked with Elton fanatics!! How we would have liked 5 minutes alone with him. We finally decided that we would have to change our route and go the opposite way to what we had intended. This was all ok with hostels already booked and we gave up trying to be any more organised and got some lunch. Elton 1 - Us 0!

After having a tasty instant noodle dish we headed into town with the hope that we would have a bit more luck with booking two more activities that we wanted to do. When we got into town, not only did we manage to get the activities booked but we also managed to find them at a cheaper price than we had first been quoted. We now had luging and parasailing booked.

En route back to the hostel passed the 'movember' pub (with the cheap beer) and when we looked at the time, low and behold, it was happy hour...well it would have been rude not to stop for one.

Day four in Queenstown was the day of luging. For this we needed to first head up Bob's Peak in a gondola. Once at the top we had a quick look out over Queenstown and the surrounding mountains, very nice views, before we retreated inside due to the strong wind.

Luging is basically go karting down a little track / run, down hill, so gravity does all the hard work and all you need to do is steer and break. We had six rides in total, two of which were on the 'scenic track' and four on the extreme. There isn't much difference between the two except the extreme is a little bit faster with a couple of tighter corners. We both agreed that it was brilliant though and even though we had six runs, we could have stayed there for another six. The only down side was to reach the top of the run, we had to use a ski lift, which takes you higher up and means you don't have to walk. A great idea, but at certain points on the lift you really got smacked by the strong, cold, wind that had made us leave the viewing deck. However the chill was worth the fun. After reluctantly turning in our safety gear, it was time to get back in a gondela to take us back down to Queenstown.

As we were in Queesntown for six nights and we had heard good things about the nightlife we decided that we would at some point sample it. After meeting a couple from Sheffield and who were also using the Kiwi bus to get about, we decided on a couple of drinks at the hostel and headed out that evening. We found a 'World Bar', (the same as in Sydney with the teapots) to Belle's delight and spent the night in there enjoying a beer and the occassional teapot.

After a few drinks the night before it is fair to say that we were both feeling a little bit tender the following morning, however there was no time to feel sorry for ourselves as we had some parasailing to do. Luckily for us the weather was nice, so we walked down to the lake front in some nice sunshine, although it was still a bit chilly.

We arrived at a pier, signed our lives away and boarded a speed boat, along with four other people. The parasailing takes place on Lake Wakatipu and the main idea of it is to give the passangers an alternative view of Queenstown and its surroundings.

We were all harnesed up and were the second couple to give it ago. As we watched the first couple come in safetly to land (on the back of the boat, you don't start in the water) we were told to make our way to the back, where we would be straped to a massive parachute, bright yellow with a smiley face on. All final checks done, we awaited our take off. Any headaches we had now seemed to have taken a back seat as at any second the winch (we were attched to) was about to start letting out line and we would effortlessly float 100m into the air. I am pleased to report this is exactly what happend, we glided gently up off the back of the boat and upwards, giving us aerial views back over to Queenstown and the surrounding moutains which look over the lake.

Sitting 100m up in the air, being pulled along by a speed boat is actually alot more relaxing that you would think, with any nerves we had disappearing after about 30 seconds of being up in the air. Infact it was really peaceful and our 10 minutes suspended in the air, seemed to fly by (no pun intended) and before we knew it we were being brought back in to land. We landed safely and with some grace (even if I do say so) and were set free from the parachute.

Another truely different experience was done, one which we both really enjoyed, we are very greatful for the good weather as well, which gave us great views and some good pictures as well.

That evening we didn't have much planned or so I thought. Little did I know that before we went luging Belle snuck off and booked a table at the Sky Restuarant (at the top of Bob's Peak, over looking Queenstown) for dinner that evening. Sneaky sneaky!

So after she had suprised me with this, we got ready and made our way back towards the gondela. At the top the views over Queenstown were just as good again, this time with slightly less windy as we were sat at a table, ready to tuck into some serious dinner.

The meals in the Sky Restaurant are buffet based and they have a huge selection to choose from. We had, salad & cold meats, curries, pad thai, pasta, fish (Belle not me), chicken, beef, pork, cheese, potato's veg, the lot. We had paced ourselves whilst eating our savory options (I say paced, we had about 6 plates each) before we made our way over to the dessert selection and selection there was chocolate mouse (which was unbelievably good), cheese cake, gateau, tirimisu, ice cream, steamed pudding, jelly, fruit and a few more I can't remember, but as you can see, there was alot to choose from. Belle couldn't manage too much in the way of dessert and after a few different ones I too was full to beyond belief.

It shows how much we ate as Belle had one glass of wine and I had one pint of beer the whole time we were there, which in total was proably pushing two hours and yes, for most of which we were eating.

A lovely suprise from Belle and a great way to finish off the day, even if we did leave the restaurant a couple of stone heavier than when we went up.

It was lucky for us that we had done all the activities we wanted to by our last day in Queenstown as our sixth and final day was horrible. I don' t think it stopped raining all day, which meant we were hostel based the whole day with some washing and some rubbish TV to pass the day. It wasn't all bad though as we had done a lot in the previous days and everything we had wanted to do, so the bad weather wasn't making us miss out on anything.

We had heard good things about Queenstown and they didn't disapoint, six days of new experiences, some nerves, eating (lots of eating) and most of all, a whole lot of fun.