Hello everyone it's us again.

Well we are now in Queenstown after having an action packed week travelling down the west coast. Well we left off with us making our way to Westport. On the way there our driver Dallas hands around a clipboard with activities to do there. Blair really wanted to do jet boating, which involves 15 or so people climbing aboard a little boat with 2 massive v8 engines strapped to the back! As you all know from our last blog I get just a little sea sick, so I trot off down the front of the bus to ask Dallas if you can get sea sick from jet boating well to this he asks if he can phone his other drivers mates to laugh at me! Turns out that it is the smoothest ride you can get in a boat except for the part where the driver spins the boat 360 degrees!! During our drive down to Westport Dallas anounces that at our next stop Lake Mahinapua, we stay at a small pub run by the oldest publican in New Zealand called Les and that it just so happens that a New Zealand news show called Close Up will be doing a documentary on him while we are there. And not only will we be on New Zealand tv but we'll be on New Zealand tv dressed up in bin bags! Yes folks the kiwi bus runs daily to this tiny pub in the middle of nowhere and every night they have a fancy dress party where the driver picks a theme.

So the next day the whole bus goes shopping for bin bags, I decide to go as Madonna with the pointy boobs and Blair goes as a ninja. We arrive at the pub which is affectionatley known as the "poo pub" and put our bags in our dorm and set to work on our costumes. Well 30 mins later blairs has finished his ninja outfit and I haven't even managed to figure out how to make a cone out of card!! Another 15 mins past and with a little help from Blair and our new friends & dorm buddies Nadine and Troy I finally manage to get the madonna look, we down tools and set of for a feed. Les puts on a big feast every night of steak, vension stew, pasta bake, corn on the cob, cooked veg and loads more all for the minimal fee of $10. After Les has said a little speech and we have been filmed tucking into some grub we all set off to put on our bin bag costumes and get ready for the "poo party"! After leaving what we thought would be plenty of time for the pub to fill up so we could just sneek in without being filmed we arrived at 8.45 to find only two people there who had thought the same thing! So Blair (the ninja), Nadine (the princess), Troy (the priate) and I (Madonna) were filmed in all our bin bag glory walking into the pub which miracously fulled to the brim 10 mins later! Well after a few drinks everyone settled into the mood and a good time was had by all.

At least until the morning when some of the bus were a little worse for wear. We set off for Franz Josef were we had already put our names down to do a full day hike on the glacier. After some umming and ahhing on my part we decided to change to the half day as I didn't think my legs or my lungs could take a full day. The next day we set off at around 12 to the hiking shop to collect our ice gear. After 45 mins of scaling sheer rock faces and climbing up and down ladders we eventually reached the terminal face and I was knarckered already! We were split into groups of confidence (code fitness) so Blair decided to go in Group 1 with Nadine & Troy and I hung back in Group 2 with a couple of other girls from the kiwi bus. Well I have to say all the pain of getting there was worth it in the end, the views were beautiful and it's not everyday you get to hike up a glacier.

After a nights stop in Wanaka where Blair went for yet another hike and I stayed in the hotel reading a magazine and nursing my sore legs we set off for the adventure capital of the world, Queenstown. On the way to Queenstown we stopped off at the worlds first bungy sight the Kawarau Bridge (43m) where we watched some people from our bus throw themselves off a perfectly good bridge with only some elastic bands tied to them! Of course we had signed up to do one 3x higher the day after and needless to say my confidence wasn't very high after watching a girl fail to jump after 4 attempts! The next morning after waking at 6.30am with a feeling of dread in my stomach we headed off to the station to be picked up for our nevis highwore bungy. Well the 35 minute drive does nothing to help the nerves, especially when the driver cranks up songs like 'Another One Bites the Dust' etc!! First you get weighed which personally I found pretty terrifying in itself, they strap on a full body harness and you hop in a cable car out to the bungy platform 134m (440ft) above the nevis river. They go in weight order from heaviest to lightest which you forget all about once your out there and trying not to let your bladder get the better of you! After watching a couple of people jump I'm beginning to feel worse as they are all going first time. So eventually Blair gets put in the Chair and get his bungy cord strapped to him and with ease he jumps off the "meat plate" first time aswell!! He comes up after 8.5 seconds of total freefall and annouches that he would like to go again, if it didn't cost another $99! Well i'm not far behind, after getting my legs strapped together and the guy telling me to pull the cord on the third bounce blah blah blah it's my turn on the meat plate. After holding onto the guy for dear life while shuffling out there he tells me to let go and three, two, one... bungy! I managed to jump on one aswell, I knew if I didn't I would hear no end of bragging from Blair, and managed to come up alive. Unlike Blair saying I want to go again I couldn't talk which for everyone that knows me knows that is very unusual and I started to cry! The guy said it was a unusual reaction as most people cry before hand but oh no not me!! After all that I'm very pleased I managed to do it although never again! After a few days chilling in Queenstown, we thought we'd give the luge a try. We got a cable car up to the top which Blair was more nervous about than doing the bungy, and had 5 goes on the luge. Brillant fun and I even beat Blair at a race!

We're heading to lake Tekapo tomorrow and maybe going for a hike up Mt John. Until next time folks. Hope all is well at home.

Missing and Love you

Sarah & Blair Xxx