New Zealand Week 3

Kiwi Experience - day 12

We left Franz Joseph early morning and headed to the town of Fox Glacier where we did an hour or so walk around Lake Matheson. This is the most photographed lake in New Zealand and when the weather is good you can catch a perfect mirror reflection of Mount Cook on the Lake. Luckily we had a clear day and the view was beautiful. Some great photo opportunities to take advantage of. We stopped again about an hour down the road where Kane told us we were going to do another 45 minute walk to some waterfalls. Everyone was really tired that day and all of us were moaning about doing another walk. We were relieved, however, to find out that he was just winding us up and when we came to a stop he pointed out the sign that said "Thunder Creek Falls 4-5 minutes"! He got the girls in the front to liven up a bit by starting off a game of 'Waterfalls' where they got points for being the first to shout 'waterfall!' whenever they saw one. I think they got up to around 40 odd by the time we got to our next stop!

We arrived in the small town of Wanaka and checked into Base Hostel. Kane had driven around the town a bit and pointed out some sites of interest to us before dropping us off at the hostel. He pointed out a nearby lake where apparently, if you're lucky, you can spot the Hector's dolphin, the smallest dolphin in the world. We had read about this in our Kiwi Ex brochure so planned a trip down to the lake once we got checked in. He was telling us that if you tap the water they think you are throwing in bread (apparently they were partial to bread and peanut butter!) and they come to the surface. So five of us trotted off to the lake and threw in a few stones, practiced our stone skimming (which Rob was really good at) and waited for the dolphins to come. Our friend Kate tried tapping the water to see if that attracted them, but unfortunately no dolphins showed. It had started to rain by then so we decided to give up and go for a coffee instead. The girl in the shop guessed straight away that we were from the Kiwi bus when we told her we had been looking for dolphins; we realised then that we had fallen hook, line and sinker for yet another of Kane's wind ups! Doh!

Kiwi Experience - day 13

The next morning we started our journey to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. First stop was at Puzzling World which was very entertaining. There was a big outdoor maze which we tried to complete first. We had to find our way around the maze, stopping at the four coloured towers at each corner, and then back out again. It was really difficult and even the seven of us working together couldn't figure it out. After what seemed like forever, our friend Paul separated himself from us and somehow found his way to the blue tower. He was jumping about excitedly at the top of this tower waving at us! However, it seemed like he got there far too quickly and we soon figured out that he had actually crawled under all of the fences to get there! Cheat! LOL. The rest of us decided to give up and let ourselves out the emergency exit. The other rooms there were really confusing. There was one where you would look through a window into a room where there were two doors which looked exactly the same size. But when one person was stood at either door, although the room itself looked the same size at each end, one person was really tall and touching the ceiling and the other was tiny! In the other room we were walking on a slanted floor, only everything in the room was level with it so if you were looking at the room itself, everything was level, yet the entire room was slanted. There was a pool table in the room which was slanted, but in the opposite direction to the floor, and when we put a ball on the bottom end of the table it would roll upwards, which totally messed with our heads.

About 15 minutes from Queenstown we stopped at the Kawarau Bridge, site of the World's first commercially operated bungy. Some of the people on our bus did a jump there and got dipped head first into the freezing water below. Watching the others doing their jump from the bridge which was 47 metres high just made us even more excited to do ours, but we were saving our money for the Nevis which is the second highest bungy in the World. We got to view the Nevis from afar while driving into Queenstown, which is basically just a little cable car hut 134 metres high, in the middle of a huge zip wire overlooking a massive canyon! Woohoo, bring it on!

Once we were checked into our hostel in Queenstown, Rob and I headed straight to the Canyon Swing shop ready to be transported to the site where we would get our first huge adrenaline rush by jumping off a cliff into a canyon. Rob had won his swing for his fancy dress costume at the Poo Pub so he got his first swing free. We could choose which way we wanted to go off the ledge from a number of different options so we both wanted to choose the scariest one. Well, if you're only going to do it once, it might as well be the scariest! Rob chose the "Elvis Cutaway" which meant he was hanging over the canyon in his harness admiring the view waiting for the guys to pull the cord and let him go. The guys were there to tease us, not make us feel any more comfortable about doing the swing! They said they would count to three before pulling the cord but they cut the rope away after two seconds and I watched as Rob plummeted down into the rocks below! He seemed to take forever to swing up again at the other side so my heart skipped a few beats I tell ya! For my jump I chose the backwards jump so I could actually throw myself off instead of waiting for them to let me go. I thought that would be a good way of pushing myself to my limits, and it certainly was! It was really good fun and we both opted to do a second swing as it was a bargain at only $38 instead of $180! We bought a couple of photographs as souvenirs and Rob also bought the DVD of his swings, all of which can be viewed on Facebook.

That night we had a big night out as most of us were staying in Queenstown for 4 days, so we were celebrating no early mornings and a few days off the bus! We were all on a bit of a high after our canyon swings and bungy jumps and we took part in our first Jagerbomb train, where they line up the glasses of Redbull at the bar with the shots of Jagermeister balancing on top and knock them all into the glasses like a domino effect. Then around 30-40 people drink them down in one go all at the same time! We took part in the pub quiz and had a good old dance with all our mates until one of the lads rallied everyone up and we all stumbled off to World Bar to get our free drinks. All we had to do was say the magic line to the bar staff...."Show me your ring my precious!" The party somehow made its way back to our 8 bed dorm and as we got more tired Rob, not being able to persuade people to leave, decided to go out into the corridor, picked up some random girl and brought her back to the room for the sole purpose of getting her to move everybody out! LOL! It worked! And we all collapsed into a deep sleep.

Kiwi Experience - day 14

Hangover cure the next day was sort in the form of a Ferg burger. This is a very wellknown burger joint in New Zealand, although there's only one of them so its a must visit when in Queenstown. These were the biggest burgers we had ever seen and neither of us could finish the whole thing. We couldnt even get through a bag of chips between us either! Very tasty though and well worth the visit. We had a walk around the lake for a bit of fresh air and bumped into some of our friends who we went for a coffee with and then went to see 'He's Just Not That Into You' at the cinema, which Rob complained was "the girliest film I've ever seen"!

Kiwi Experience - day 15

The next day was our Milford Explorer trip. It was a full day bus and boat trip which took us through the Fiordland National Park to the World Heritage listed Milford Sound (see photo to this blog) where we also visited an underwater aquarium. It was quite an expensive trip and most of the day was spent on the bus driving to the port, with just a couple of hours on the boat. We had a few stops on the way to view some gorgeous scenery and stopped at a little town called 'Knobs Flat'! We also drove passed a road named 'Wong Way'. haha! ;-P It was a great day out but we did feel a little disappointed at the views of the Milford Sound as it is a trip which is bigged up by everyone so we were expecting more than what it actually was.

We met up with some of our friends that night who had just arrived in Queenstown and who we had left in Wellington. They were all a bit worse for wear like we were on our first night, but it was nice to see them for a quick pint before we went to bed.

Kiwi Experience - day 16

Nevis day!! It had finally arrived! We had been waiting for this day since hearing all about James' and Laura's bungy jump before we'd even left home! We were on the first run of the day so we had to be at the bungy shop at 9am to check-in for our jump. Myself, Rob and our friend Chiqui were all on the same run. Once we'd checked in we were weighed (woah, I'd put on a bit of weight since South America!) and our weight written on our hand which would determine in what order we were to jump. We had about a 45 minute journey to the jump site during which our nerves were definitely starting to show. Once we were kitted out in our harnesses we rode the cable car across the wire to the jump cart hanging 134 metres above the ground. There were about 15 jumpers in total and myself, Rob and Chiqui weighed the lightest of everyone so we were the final three to jump. I was still really excited about doing my first bungy and, although I wasn't too nervous at that stage, watching the other people going before us and disappearing off the side of the cart was definitely starting the butterflies!

I was first to jump out of the three of us so after getting my leg braces on I climbed into the black dentist-like chair and had my legs bound together and my bungy ropes attached. I then hopped to the end of the ledge and looked down into the canyon below. That was the point where my belly flipped and I thought "What the hell am I doing?!" The guy behind me told me to "Fly like Supergirl!" and so I took a deep breath and jumped......... Wow...what an amazing feeling! Flying through the air, plummeting to the ground attached (hopefully!) to a huge rubber band......it was just fantastic! I gritted my teeth towards the end bracing myself for the pull upwards, but it was nothing like that at all, it was really gentle. I did see stars as all the blood rushed to my head, but then I reached up to pull the cord which released my legs and I bounced around for the next few minutes the right way up! I was pulled back up with a huge grin on my face ready to watch Rob and Chiqui have their go.

Rob went next and took a big dive off the edge......swinging back up a few moments later..... minus his New York beanie! Ooops! How many times did they tell us to remove hats and loose shoes?! Nobody even noticed as we were all thinking too much about the crazy thing we were about to do! Never mind, its an excuse to buy a new one.

(Rob's edit: I felt absolutely fine until I shuffled to the edge. All morning and throughout everyone else's jumps I wasn't really feeling any fear or excitement, just normal. Then when I was at the edge, I looked down and then looked back at the camera and said "Ooooooh sh!t!" - at that moment I was immediately nervous but excited too. There was no time to think about it much, it was 3..2.1.. jump! And so I tried hard to jump as far out as possible pretending I was diving into a pool, but as I left the cabin I did let out a scream (a manly one at least). The 4 or 5 seconds of freefall (they advertise it as 8 but its so not) was such an amazing feeling. On the first bounce I realised I had my NYC beanie hat still on, well, at that point it had just come off and as I was being lifted back up to the cabin I saw if floating away in the stream below and gave it a little wave goodbye. An excellent experience and one that I would gladly do over and over again. Bring on the highest bungy in the World in Hong Kong!).

When we arrived back to town we were on such a high. We had arranged to meet our friends, Chiya, Kate and Nahid that afternoon so we could all go and watch Rob getting his new tattoo. It was a bit early so we wandered to the t-shirt shop where you can get your own designs printed up and we bumped into our friends in there as they were deciding on their hoody designs. We all greeted each other with excited screams and hugs as we swapped stories of our bungy jumps and their skydives which they had also done that morning. Rob decided that he wanted a New Zealand hoody so he picked out a design and ordered it for later that day. We then headed off to the tattoo shop so Rob could get his stars tattood onto his hand and myself and Kate discussed the ins and outs of the wrist pierings we were debating on getting. Unfortunately they didnt have the stars we wanted so neither of us had it done that day.

It was our last night in Queenstown and a lot of the original group from our bus who we had travelled around with for over two weeks were were staying on, so we went for an Indian meal with some of our close friends and a few drinks with everyone else to say goodbye, although we would be seeing some of them again in a couple of days as they caught us up in Christchurch.

Kiwi Experience - day 17

The next day we travelled to Christchurch, stopping on the way for some photo opportunities of the snow-capped mountains and the Church of the Good Shepherd, which is the most photographed church in New Zealand. It's tiny and in the middle of nowhere! But it had an amazing background of a beautifully blue lake and the mountains behind that. This was also to be our last bus journey with Kane as he had been asked to do another round of the South Island instead of going back up to Auckland. He'd become a mate of ours during the last two and a half weeks, so it was sad having to say goodbye, he was a cool driver and good fun.

And then there were four! Myself, Rob, Chiqui and Nina were the only originals left at that point so we were feeling a bit deflated. A pint at the local pub that night helped a little although it was absolutely chucking it down with rain!

Kiwi Experience - day 18

The next day I found a tattoo parlour that had the stars I was looking for for my piercing. The guy in the shop was really honest and told me that he had just started doing these sorts of piercings (which are called dermal anchors) and he had only done five of them. He said he would understand if I didnt want him to do it, he didnt want to lie and say he was experienced when he wasn't. It was the only place that I'd been in which had the stars and one of the girls working there showed me some he'd done on her and they looked fine. He looked trustworthy enough, and he was actually really cute, so I decided I'd just go for it! My souvenir of New Zealand!

That evening we met up with Kate and Chiya, who'd arrived in Christchuch a day behind us, Nina and Chiqui and had a meal at an Irish bar in the town centre. We said our goodbyes again to Kate and Chiya in case we didnt see them again, as they were on the reserve list for our bus the next day, which unfortunately they didnt manage to get on. We also had to say goodbye to Chiqui at 5am the following morning as she was flying back home to the US that day after an early morning hot air balloon ride.

Sad days.......;-(...but concluding an absolutely fantastic fun-filled week!