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Queenstown is an awesome little place, quite different from what I was expecting! Its a small and pretty little town tucked away in between the snow topped mountains of The Remarkables range (which are, surprisingly, quite remarkable) and right by a beautiful and huge lake. Very picturesque!
We got here wednesday afternoon after a gruelling 11hr bus from Franz Josef, only to get up bright and early the next morning for a little bungy jump! And if you are going to do a bungy, might as well do it in style at the infamous Nevis, which is a 134m jump from a tiny little pod suspended on zip wire in the middle of a massive canyon and surrounded by moutains. The scenery is pretty incredible (pictures will be up soon), but I don't think we were quite thinking about that as opposed to the insane jump we were about to do. Hannah, Yvonne (a girl we have been travelling with on the Magic bus) and I were kitted out with harnesses and taken along the zip wire to the pod. It was freezing, moving around with the wind, and scarily high. Not very comforting! Yvonne and I were some of the first to jump, so there wasn't much waiting around getting scared. The girl who was supposed to jump right before me started hyperventilating and crying, and refused to jump. Oh dear. So after the guy strapped on the bungy chord and such, followed by a quite pep talk, off I was, shuffling towards the tiny little jumping platform ... and absolutely scared s***less. But the worst part is the shuffling (I refused to look down), and the fact that there is nothing infront of you but air and nothing for you to do but jump. So I dive, head first. And it was absolutely incredible. It just feels like you are never going to stop falling! 8 seconds of falling at about 120 km/hr is very difficult to describe other than just an amazing rush. Its long enough for you to actually realise what you are doing, which is why we chose to do Nevis as opposed to the smaller other bungy places they have here.
And the way back up was quite relaxing! Once you've bounced a few times you have to pull a chord to get yourself in a sitting position, which is a bit scary to do (you don't feel like pulling a string that could potentially be keeping you alive lol), but then you are just sitting there, catching your breath, and really admiring the scenery. Its absolutely spectacular!
So yeah, I had a bit of an adrenaline buzz for the rest of the day. Once back in Queenstown, we promptly rewarded ourselves with one of the infamous burgers at FergBurger. They are huge, about the size of my face, and just amazing. I got the political incorrectly named Bun Laden (with falafels, yum), and it was the best way to top off that morning!
Yesterday was a bit more mellow, we headed on a 5 hour bus ride to Milford Sound for a cruise around the sea - very pretty! Some amazing views on the drive over (again, pictures will follow soon), and Milford was awesome.
So yeah, I'm quite liking the Queenstown region! Its gotten really cold lately though, today its raining in town but snowing a bit higher up (we can see snow topped trees on the mountain just behind our hostel). So although I am quite sad to leave New Zealand next week, I am looking forward to some Fiji beaches and hopefully a bit of windsurfing! :)
Pictures: http://gaellespictures.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-zealand-continued.html
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Olivier Great stuff ! Adding up N°6 to the List Of Things You Do When Travelling Around The World: 1. behaving badly by kikking out little old vietnamese ladies out of trains (Vietnam) 2. fraternizing with fellow passengers specialized in dodgy import-export business during a 24 hours bus ride (Vietnam to Laos) 3. testing own resistance to heat during bus breakdown in the middle of nowhere at 40°C + (Laos) 4. fleeing riots and civil unrest while the army is shooting at the rebels causing 19 casualties (Bangkok) 5. enjoying Near Death Experience after being kikked out of a boat while white water rafting (Australia) – Note : I take this as a revenge from the little old vietnamese ladies… 6. paying 58,500 Euros/hour for an 8 seconds free fall strapped to an elastic band (New Zealand) – that’s about 16 Euros per second Looking forward to add the N°7 to the list !