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Can't believe I've only got 2 days to write about today! Must be a record. Found a cheap internet cafe in town, yay for cheap internet!
Well as you may have guessed, we are now in Queenstown. We left Franz yesterday morning to embark on a nice long bus journey! We ended up on the bus from 7.45am until about 6pm in the end. We had the same magicbus driver for a very long time, a slight 'character' called Mark, or Ma-a-a-a-ark which was how he introduced himself. He said each sentence about 3 times and was continually late, forgot where we were going and had no concept of what time we had to get there. We have left him now though, and everyone is feeling a little bit sad about that! He was definitely the most memorable bus driver so far.
Anyway, yesterday we passed by Fox Glacier on the bus, looking pretty much like Franz, though apparently it's a bit smaller and we didn't get to walk on it, boo! We then went to have a look at Lake Matheson, which is the so-called 'Mirror lake' from my last post. It was very pretty, managed to get one picture which was very mirrory, it was quite hard to get! We also passed lots of lakes, including lake Wanaka when we passed through the town which is what the picture above is of. We got lakes like this pretty much the whole way down, not too shabby!
Once we got into Queenstown, we started to see the awesome mountains that it has all around the place. They are called the Remarkables, which Emma thinks sounds like the sequel to the Incredibles and I heartily agree. But before we got into the town, we visited the original commercial bungy site, the Kuwarau bridge which is 42m over the river. There were no takers yesterday, but a fair few of us signed up for other bungys, myself included!
Today was bungy day. I got up at 7am and had a good skype chat with Huw, which had to be put off for far too long because of the annoying early starts the past few days to get early buses. So pleased to finally get the chance to talk though, it has been a while and I really needed it!
Then Gaelle, Yvonne and myself headed into town to the bungy centre. We had to get weighed (yay) and some of us (me) nearly cried when the scales did not tell me what I wanted to see! Whoever says you will lose weight travelling lies! Anyway, we got on the bus and embarked on the 45-minute journey to the Nevis river. Once we got there we got our harnesses on and got weighed again! Then we got ready to go. The bungy was done out of a bungy 'pod' which was basically just a teeny little hut suspended right in the valley of the river, with a cable-car type contraption taking you over to it. Taking the cable car over was scary enough! But once we got to the pod, we got to see how ridiculously high up we were, thanks to the bits of glass floor in it!
We got to watch loads of people jump, especially me as I was last! It looked absolutely terrifying. The jump was 134m in total, approximately 440ft, in other words f...lipping high! People seemed to fall forever, but in actual fact it was 8.5 seconds of freefall which is a long time for bungy! I watched Yvonne and Gaelle go, who loved it, which should have made me feel better but didn't! The girl before Gaelle didn't manage to jump, she was the only drop-out in our group, and apparently it was her birthday! The jump was non-refundable as well, and at 115 quid you want to get your money's worth!
When it was my turn, I got my legs strapped into the cuffs, went and sat on the 'bungy chair' and they attached the cord to my feet and to the safety harness. Then they take you to a little platform about a foot square, and you have to walk right to the edge of it so your toes are just over the edge. Then they count down, and you're gone! I was absolutely terrified walking out onto the platform, I wanted something to hold onto! Managing to only look at my feet, I shuffled out right onto the edge and managed to jump first time after the countdown! I was quite proud of myself! It's pretty hard to describe the feeling of doing a jump, especially one that high. Once you get used to the fact that you're falling, and quickly, you start to enjoy it, then you wonder if you're ever going to stop because the freefall is so long! Feels awesome though. After 2 bounces, you have to pull a rope on your leg so that they can pull you back up the right way round, as you fall head-first and it's not very nice to be pulled up 134 metres that way round!
Awesome morning, obviously I ended up buying a souvenir photo, even though we were vowing not to. It's pretty awesome, but you can only tell it's me from the purple hoody that I have literally been wearing everywhere in NZ! Spent too much money today really. We had nothing to eat for breakfast so went to the legendary Fergburger for lunch to have enormous burgers, easily twice the size of any normal ones. This is why holiday dieting doesn't work! I also finally bought my toy kiwi, which I have been searching for this whole trip! It does transform itself into a pillow though, so I figure it will be very useful for the next 8 weeks even though it is massive so I will probably regret my decision!
Tonight we are heading to the World Bar which serves cocktails out of teapots :D Tomorrow we are going to Milford Sound, which I can't wait for as it looks amazing!
- comments
Christine C Bravo ! How awful bungy jumping sounds from what you're discribing, it made me feel like I was walking on that tiny platform, brrrr!!! Must be very proud of yourself, well done!