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I can't believe it's been a whole week since I last wrote - I've done so much in the last week I'm wondering how I'm going to fit it all into my blog.Last time I wrote I was in Franz Josef preparing to go on an 8 hour ice hike. I have to say, it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done but also one of the most enjoyable. The glacier was named in 1865 by a man called von Haast, after the Austro-Hungarian emperor. There are over 3000 glaciers in NZ but Franz Josef is one of the most accessible, and people have been hiking on it since the early 1900s. At its thickest, the glacier is 180 metres deep, but has the advantage of being in a warm climate and surrounded by sub-tropcial rainforest. It is advancing down the slope by about 5cm per day and pushing a load of rocks and boulders in front of it. It grinds the rock up into rock flour, and that colours the rivers and lakes a semi-opaque ice blue which is very beautiful. Once we reached the glacier we had to attach crampons to our feet. It was so weird to walk on these ice sheets and not fall over, but really essential. As we advanced further into the glacier it wasn't flat. Imagine massive shards of ice 30 or 40 feet high sticking into the sky - we had to climb up and over those, putting our feet on steps cut into the vertical ice walls by our guide. We also had to walk along ice steps on walls with our feet either side of deep crevasses. It required so much concentration and was actually quite dangerous. If one of us had fallen we would almost definitely have broken something and we could have died. I was terrified but it wasn't the kind of thing you could chicken out of half way through and the sense of achievement when we finished was immense. One of the most mentally and physically demanding things I've done but so worth it.After Franz Josef we spent a night in the ski resort of Wanaka, which was beautiful, and had the dual advantages of an amazingly nice hotel for a tenner a night, and also incredibly cheap drinks - happy hour was two glasses of wine for the equivalent of 2 quid, and it wasn't even skanky wine.I am now in Queenstown where I will be doing my longest stint (8 nights), which I'm very pleased about because it's stunning. Queenstown is a party town in summer and a ski resort in winter. The permanent population is about 11,000-12,000 but with the constant flow of tourists, the actual number is more like 25,000. Being in Queenstown is a bit like being in freshers'week at uni but in an immensely picturesque and warm town, and for this reason I have been out till 4.30am for the last 3 nights in a row. Unfortunately, I have also been getting up around 8 or 9 so it's starting to take its toll and I look a bit of a hag.Queenstown is the home of bungy jumping, commercialized in 1988 by 2 nutters, the first site being the Kawarau bridge. One of them publicised the sport by going up the Eiffel Tower, evading security, staying there all night and bungying off it. Needless to say it made the world news and bingo - free publicity. He won extra points for his t shirt-jacket combo and impressively styled mullet. Bungying is actually extremely safe - probably safer than you being at your computer reading this. The cords can hold a weight of 9000kg (and I've not yet eaten enough pies to exceed this weight - I currently weigh 62kg) and are only used for a 3rd of their lifespan. The youngest person who can jump is ten, and the oldest person to do a jump was 94 (as is my grandma - I'm going to send her a postcard of it and suggest that she might like to have a go).When I came to NZ I swore I would never do a bungy, but I was feeling a bit crazy last week so I put my name down and paid before I could chicken out. There are a selection of different bungys in Queenstown but I thought if I was going to have the crap scared out of me I may as well do the highest - the Nevis, which is incidentally the 3rd highest in the world. Well actually, it's currently the 2nd highest. The actual 2nd highest is shut because someone jumped off it and pulled an employee with him. Needless to say the employee splatted on the floor below - not a nice way to die I can imagine. The Nevis is 134m high and is the only bungy that takes place from a cable car, custom built over 3 years, suspended over a canyon. Trust me, when you are sat in that swaying in the breeze, looking through the glass floor at the canyon 134 metres below, you feel a bit concerned. But, I manned up and did it - you should see how scared I am on the dvd. No hesitation, just threw myself off there, and I have to say it is one of the weirdest things in the world. You get 8.5 seconds of freefall with just your arms in front of you, and words cannot describe the sheer feeling of terror. The feeling afterwards is immense though - I want to do one again but I wish the freefall lasted longer because it's so cool to be able to feel like you are going to die, but also know that you are safe! Hard to explain but amazing all the same. http://www.bungy.co.nz/index.php/pi_pageid/29 - have a look at what I did.I've realized that I've pretty much rewritten War and Peace with all of this, and still have loads more to write, so I am going to leave you with that for now and do part 2 in a few days. I can't put my photos on just yet because I am staying at a friend's house and she only has dial up, but I will be in Christchurch by midweek and will definitely have it done by then.Hope you're all well (p.s. Crolla, I'm glad you love the facts as much as I do. My bus driver was amazed when I told him how much of his commentary I remembered the other night, and no I don't write them down, I just have agood memory for stuff like this!) xxxx
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