Hi!!

Made it to Queenstown after a detour into a place called Puzzling World, where our darling Mr Atle tried to get us all lost (and then ditch us!) in the ginormous 2 storey maze! The fact that we cheated even getting INTO the maze didnt bode well for trying to get out again...and the heckling maintenance man who had caught us and watched our progress from his ladder definitely made it more intense an experience!

Anywho, after a good 20 minutes of running about and getting lost we ditched Mr Stroemstad to solve the maze on his own and we fled inside. This place was so much fun - its weird as hell, lots of visual illusions and wonky rooms that make you dizzy...oh and a willy wonka style room where one end you look like a giant and the other you look like a midget! Twas very amusing!

We ended up in a room where everything was wonky and balls rolled up hill and the like (very unattractive video of me sitting on a chair and gonig up hill available on request!) and we were falling all over the place! It was dead nauseating! We didnt recover from that for a while - like being hungover without the fun of the night before!

I think the most...disturbing and unexpected bit was walking into the toilets where they had a roman toilet scene painted on the wall and two benches on either side with holes in for your business (its all a joke before you start to worry!) anywho, we went in and found people posing for a photo....with their pants round their ankles...sitting on the toilets....in a group! We fled very quickley!!

Onto Queenstown which was a cool little town! Lots of activities and the like to do...when we arrived we went and watched a load of people jumping off a bridge for bungy...none of us did it though becuase of course we are all too poor...not scared at all what you talking about?!

Queenstown is set on a gorgeous lake being overlooked by gorgeous mountains and a beautiful park which we wiled away many an hour! DUCKS people!

Miss Fish and I also signed up to do river boarding aswell...this is basically going down a river....with rapids...on a boggie board!! Heehee....it was the funniest experience! Not least trying to get into the wet suits! That was soemthing special! Having to have a grown man pulling up a giant romper suit on you with so much force you jump off the floor was just the beginning! Lets just say that wet suit jackets were not made for big busted ladies and watching the zip go up...then fall down...then go up....then fall down took soem time off our trip! Eventually they decided covering it up with a floaty jacket was the best solution!

After a solomn vow made with all present that the state of us in the outfits would never again be mentioned we all waddled (very very hard to walk!) down to the river with our boogie boards! Trying to control that thing in still water was hard enough let alone in rapids!! Luckily the river had a pretty good idea of where it wanted us to go anyway! Dont be worried about me coming a cropper...between the life jacket and the helmet i wore all that was visible was my nose so no fear!

The first few rapids we went through were quite daunting...when ur actually in the middle of them they look kind of huge! Not like the little waves that the bloke called them to me! But after a while you figure that youll float anyway and its so much fun! You dont have much choice where you go so just go with the flow!! The funniest bit is when you go in the whirlpooly bits and just go round and round and round! The only bit that did worry me a bit was when i went ahead of the guide and was leading the group!! We were past the rapids and he said it was fine but I wasnt convinced!

We also got a ride on a jetski baywatch styley lifesaving floaty thing and went on this awesome slide on our boogie boards so we went skimming across the water like wee stones! Dead good fun!!

Off to Milford Sound soon for a night then back to Queenstown.

xxx