Hello there all our readers, who by this point must have dwindled to just a devoted few. We are very sorry that our blogs have been much less in number but we are now doing our best to catch up, so here is my (Tom) entry for Queenstown, New Zealand.

We arrived in Queenstown on a very sunny day in April with the same bus that we had been on since the Pooh Party and thus we were on the bus with all the same people as well. So our first job when we got into Queenstown was to go to the worlds first bungee site and cook our bungee jumps!! The bungee site that we are at was so 50 ft high and it still looked pretty high to us. The one bungee that Nick, ben and I signed up for was the nevis bungee and it was 130 ft high!!! Its the 3rd highest bungee jump in the world!!!! yikes!! We watched a couple of people do a bungee jump off our bus and they all seemed to enjoy it but we were all still feeling very nervous! We booked it for the friday of that week.

Our second job was to jump off the bus and the whole bus had a big group picture taken that unfortunately we had to pay for so we chose not to get one. Also this picture did not include ole Steve, who was still Franz Josef as the poor lad was still struggling a bit with his Glandular fever.

So Nick, ben and I went about exploring Queenstown, it was actually a lot smaller than we had thought. As we had heard so much about it we thought that it would be this massive place but as it was NZ obviously we were wrong and it was actually really small, much smaller than Thatcham. But still it had some awesome things in it, best of which was the legendary Ferg Burger!! This place was awesome and served the biggest burgers in the world for between 10-15 bucks. Its safe to say that we ate there on our first night and it would not be the last time.

As it was our first night in Queenstown, and as most of our bus was only in the same place for this one night, we all suited up and headed out for a big night out on the town. We started down in our hostel bar where we met up with most of the people from our bus and we all got rather merry. We had some cool drinks though including one that Steve (another steve and Bens fav person in the world), made up. He poured 3 shots into a shallow dish and lit it, we then all took turns in dipping our hands into so it looked liked they were on fire and then licking them, it looked damn cool!! So after our hostel bar we headed to a place called the World Bar where we had heard to could get free drinks if we just said hello big nose to the bar staff ( well free drinks or a punch in the nose). As it turned out we did get free drinks and by going back to different bar staff everytime we got ended up getting about 3 free drinks each!! World bar was also famous for its teapots, which were basically teapots of cocktails that you had to do shots of, nick, ben and I all shared one. We have since come to decide that this was the worst decision of the evening of almost everything else is a relative blur, still was one hell of a night!!

So the next morning we all awoke feeling very worst for wear and most of our 2nd Day in Queenstown was feeling very, very fragile. We did manage to make it out of our room for possibly the worst KFC any of us had ever had. The rest of the day was a wash out, apart from the fact that Steve arrived on the Kiwi Bus, still feeling under the weather but well enough to stay in a dorm.

And so friday came, D-day, the nevis bungee jump. The three of us were all absolutely terrified of what was to come. It wasn't just the height from which we were jumping (we had all done 12,000 ft sky dives), it was the fact that once we got to the top we would have to throw ourselves off, we was a terrifying though. So we all went to check in (unfortunately Steve was unable to do the Nevis because of his fever). We check in at the office where we all got weighed, Nick was lightest at 68 kg, Ben was 72 and I came in at 76kg. We then got picked up in a small mini van and taken on the 30 minutue drive to the Jump site. To get to the site we had to go up a very steep, narrow hill up a dirt path that was bad enough in itself until we got over the top and were then exposed to the jumping platform. It was basically a cable car suspended in mid-air over a between two moutains and over a very shallow river, help!!!

So we got off the van and immiediatly were fitted with harnesses. Nick and Ben refused to look down but I just couldn't help it, I had to know where I was jumping. In order to get over to the platform we had to go across in what is best described as a very small shopping cart that acted like a cable car and could take just 5 people across at a time. As people were jumping in wieght order a few other people went across first before it was then our turn, we piled into the car and began the slow crossing over to the platform, which itself was actually quite big and could easily hold everyone who was jumping at the same time as us (about 16 people.)

So as we were jumping heaviest first I was the first one to step up to the jumping area. They sit you down in a car and strap up your legs and attach your harness to all the various saftey things. This all seemed to go very fast and suddenly I was at the edge ready to jump. I just couldn't resist another look down and I remember thinking there is no-way Im guna be able to do this. Still the jump guy did the count down, 5-4-3-2-1 and I was jumped, for a second it felt likeI was floating and then I plummeted down to earth at a very, very fast speed, it was an amazing feeling and something that I thought was better than sky dive (although the others disagreed as they felt sky diving last longer). So i got to the bottom and luckily managed to pull the lever that realesed my feet and so as I was winched back up to the top I was in a sitting position, rather than being winched up to to the top upside down, which has happened to some people we watched jump. It was a brilliant expierence and one that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Next up was Ben and he looked just as nervous as I had been. He got all geared up and waddled to the edge, still not looking down (impressive). As we went to jumped he screamed F*#k It very loudly, making the whole platform laugh. I don't think he realised quite how loudly he had screamed it (it can be heard clearly on his DVD). Finally Nick was up, he didn't scream but still looked equally as nervous as ben and I had been. Both of us were now more than happy looking down as we had done and and we watched nick fall and bounce off the bottom, at which point he looked worryingly corpse like, but all was well and he too said it was an amazing achievement of his.

So thats the story of our bungee jump, all three of us got photoes and DVD's to remember our jumps from and so we'll be able to show them when we get home!

Our time in Queenstown was still not up though. The next day (saturday), I got to a riverboarding trip, which i had one courtesy of my Nazi costume at our fancy dress party at the pooh pub. (I did look a little worryingly Ayran). So I went to do that, not 100% what to expect. Well I got driven out to the bottom of the river and given a wetsuit, a helmet, a life jacket and a boogie board, which i was going to be going down the river on, through up to grade 4 rapids!!!! It was a really fun expierence but not one Im 100% sure i would have paid for, still getting tossed around and very wet going downa river was great fun. At the end of the trip the guys who had taken us down brought out a jet ski and we got to cling on for dear life as they pulled us about on a board attached to the back of it.

That night was the big match, Man U v Chelsea which kicked off around midnight our time. I had agreed to meet some of the people I'd gone riverboarding for some drinks around 9pm so i headed out for that while i left the others playing monopoly (thats right), with some of the other people from our bus. So i spent most of the night with people I'd been riverboarding with. We went to the hostel bar and then again to world bar which was all very fun. Then come 12 I headed off on my own to find a bar to watch the footy, which i did. I found an awesome bar with massive screens and I settled in to watch the match. By this point I'd had a few and those of you who know me know I follow Utd and thus i was very displeased by the result. I drowned my sorrows a bit at that bar before heading back to the world bar to look for the people from riverboarding, who i didn't find but i did find some more people from our room back at the hostel and I partied with them for a while before heading back to the room to crash out, quite drunk and very disappointed.

So the following day was our last day in Queenstown, we spent most of it just ambling around the town, having another Ferg burger and some McDonalds (arn't we healthy!!). Nothing really happened on this day, we had planned to walk to the top of one of the moutains surronding Queenstown but alas it tipped it down with rain and we weren't able to which was rubbish.

The next day we had got yup very early, around 6 am!!! for our bus to Christchurch, which is our last destination in NZ before we fly over to OZ!!!