Easter Weekend Roadtrip in the Subaru.

Well to start our Easter celebrations, we hit Christchurch town for a night out on Thursday night. Our first experience of the nightlife here, and we had a great time partying and dancing the night away. Slightly rough for Friday tho, to pack a bag and the beast and hit the road heading south.

Driving around 6 ½ hrs to get us to Wanaka, which is a stunning little alpine town that was expecting to be hit with 100,000 people over the Easter break, all attending the Warbirds over Wanaka show. We headed out for dinner to a Thai restaurant, then to a pub only to learn it is illegal to sell alcohol on Easter Friday and Monday in this country. What, NO alcohol????? Ok so we have found something we do not like about this country. In order to be served alcohol you have to be eating a main course, and we had just eaten!! So we settled for a soft drink whilst watching the rugby (super 14's).

The first night, roughing it, sleeping in the back of the beast with the seats folded down and our sleeping bags and duvets, was actually quite comfortable, until we were rudely awoken by a council man at 6am, lecturing us about being camped illegally in a carpark by the lake. Whoops, we played the dumb blonde tourists, apologized and moved on. Destination subway for brekko before heading out to Wanaka airport for the show. $60 each to get in. Very busy popular show. We walked around all the tents, and got to go in some of the aircrafts, which was v interesting. But the temperature was not good at only 10Degrees, we were freezing (having only summer clothes and flip flops), we bought beanie hats and headed back to the car, to snuggle under the duvets and watch the airshow from the comfort of the beast. The only time we left the car was to venture out for lunch of pies and dinky dougnuts (already can you see how bad the diet is)..

Leaving the show we drove on to Queenstown, which was also heaving. Stopping en route at the AJ Hackett bungy, that we almost did it, but Karen did not feel great so instead we booked a skydive!! Deciding to be safe we would book into a campsite for the night, were we had a plot cramped in around 100's of tents. Having to pay a $100 misbehavior bond haha apparently because Queenstown is party town. Yippeee suits us. Showered and changed before heading out for a drink, had a fab night out, even drinking with an all black. But again they had to stop serving alcohol at midnight because it went into Easter Sunday, so we headed back to the car with a huge pizza.

Sunday, the big day of the jump, and wow we were so lucky the weather was just perfect with clear blue skies. We spent the morning walking around Queenstown, sat down by the water and enjoyed a full breakfast while trying not to get to wound up or nervous about our jump, however I am sure Karen was sick of hearing me saying "do you know we are jumping out of a plane today", being the excited big kid I was excited more than scared. Getting to the drop zone, the palms started to sweat as reality hit, we were actually going to do this.. Into jump suits and very flattering hats, all harnessed up by our tandom masters, who we were very fortunate to have a nice good looking man each. 9 of us onto the plane. Pretty cramped, sat between our tandom masters legs, got attached and our hats and goggles on. Getting up to 12,000 we did not have time to get nervous as we were having a giggle and banter with the cameras rolling, suppose we both put on the brave faces. Karen jumped first, and it was mental just seeing her fall, my turn next. They hang you out of the plane with your legs bent back, your camera man in front of you capturing the moment, your head back on your tandem's shoulder (trust me you don't want to look down anyway), rock 3 times then your off. WOW what a feeling, free falling, at the first 5seconds ish you are very disorientated as you are spinning round before stabilizing. Awesome feeling, amazing scenery, the wind very loud in your ears as you are rushing through the sky at over 200kmph, after 45 seconds of freefall, they pull the cord and hope your parachute opens, (this can hurt the under arms as your suddenly jerked). The parachute slows you down so me and Karen got to have a chat, having a cruse around admiring the scenery. Landing was easy as we skidded down on our bums (and we all know the Pringle ass has enough padding) haha. Unclipping from my tandem and giving him a hug, my camera man a high five and running round to find Karen and roll around on the floor with sheer adrenalin running through our veins, WOW WOW WOW. So another box ticked and still buzzing with adrenaline even now. We will upload the pictures so you can all have a laugh at our faces as we jump.

Decided to drive on, going a different road heading back towards Christchurch, we stopped the night at Twizel, a sleepy little town in High Country with not much happening, but we booked into a really good motel/backpackers. As after 2 nights in the car I think we were both ready to have a bed. Twizel was a great base for Mount Cook, being only 45mins drive away. We were up early Mon morning and drove on to seek mount cook, awesome drive with stunning scenery, unfortunately when we arrived we were v kean to walk, and it was a perfect day for it again with the sun shining, but only having flipflops or the new shoes we had to buy for the skydive we were not kitted out for a big walk, so drove on to a point along unsealed road, walked or climbed, for about ½ an hour to get magnificent views of mount cook, and the biggest glacier in NZ, that is melting and has left a big lake. It was stunning, really check out the photos.

Now back in Christchurch after a very extravagant weekend away we are both on a very strict detox for the next 2 weeks.

Hope you all had a very happy Easter and eat to much chocolate. Miss you al lots. xxxxxxx