Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We spent the morning chilling at Billys, enjoying being back in a house and having proper beds and sofas, what a luxury, before borrowing billys car and heading to town for some excitement. (can you believe someone not only lend their spare room but also their car to 3 strangers, especially since they've just crashed?) Well that's Billy our surrogate dad.
The first point of excitement was doing the Kawarau river jet boat - exactly what it sounds like, loads of tourists a jet boat, lots of spins and getting drenched, loads of fun.
Thurs 8th - Oh my god, what am i doing? I've booked and paid for (turns out john paid as my valentines present, thanks baby) a 15,000ft sky dive at 2pm today. Have i lost all my marbles? Oh yes i have! Did a pre jump half an hour safety talk. Made me more nervous than before, ignorance is bliss. Headed to the jump site and met my jump master Kras a very nice bulgarian man. Not sure if he was nice enough to put my life in his hands, Aaarghhh! Got kitted up and Danni and I jumped in the smallest plane ever and there were 11 of us in it, pilot, co-pilot, 3 crazy jumpers, 3 jump masters and 3 camera men - ther was no way i was jumping out of a plane and not having proof! Well i did it and i survived! I was more scared going up than coming down 9see how scared i am in the video then multiply it to get how scared i was in the plane. Falling out of the plane or rather being pushed by Kras was an amazing feeling and it just got better - it was quite cloiudy so we couldn't see the ground as we jumped and then fell through the cloud reaching terminal velocity - bloody fast. I later found out this ios 200mph!!! Coming throught the clouds was out of this world, the views of the mountains, l;akes and town were stunning and once the parachute opened and i relaxed everything became so peaceful, it was an amazing experience. Celebrated with a few beers and a bbq.
Fri 9th - What did we get ourselves into today? YOu ask.... Well today it was canyon swing day. Having been to Ayai Napa and done what i thought was something similar i was quite relaxed about this one. How wrong could i be?! Getting on the bus up there and watching the DVD of everyone else doing it i started to get a little scared, it was a lot higher than i thought - 200m and the free fall a lot longer 150m. On top of this there were 10 different ways to jump, backwards, forwards, upside down, in a chair, blindfolded etc. They recommend you jump yourself the first time, so i opted for backwards!! Now for me totry and explain it.... Imagine standing on a chair and doing the fall of faith backwards into peoples arms, quite scary, Now imagine doing it on top of a 200m cliff with no one behind you!! Just the rope that pulls tight 50m from the floor. I don't think i have ever been so scared in my life. But i did it and i smiled for the camera. When you get to the bottom and you're just hanging around feeling safe it's quite cool and you feel you've achieved something. So much so i decided to do it again, the second time i did the jump called 'Gimp boy", you're attached to the rope with a harness at your waist then dangled of the edge by the canyon guys where you flip yourself upside down, head first and wait for the \m to release you. not so scary but still a huge buzz falling head first into a canyon. After that bit of fun we decided to have a night out and a pub crawl around QT, starting with revolver, where Billys son was playing in his band that were touring the South Island. The band were good and the beers were cold so all started off well. Then someone bought a round of shots (vicky!!) at this point everything goes downhill. We only made it to 2 more bars before having to carry Danni home, i think all the excitement got to much for her (or was it something you ate?)
Sat 10th - Saturday was spent fining the car we'd abandoned in town last night and patying the parking fine we'd got. oops, only 7 pounds though. Not too harsh. Had a quiet early night ready for D&V to head to the airport Sunday morning to catch their flight to Fiji via CHC.
Sunday 11th - On the way to the airport Danni was wishing that her flight was cancelled as she loved QT so much. It seems wishes are granted here, the flight from QT to CHC was cancelled due to low cloud. This therefore meantte girls had no hope of making their flight to Fiji. After a lot of panicking and running up and down the airport i managed to get them a flight from Invercargill (2hrs south of QT) to CHC then onto Fiji. What a palaver. We got them to Invercargill 5 mins before the flight was due to take off, luckily kiwis are more layed back and happoily checked them in. Eventually they made it to Fiji to find they were in the middle of a monsoon that was forecast to last until Thursday - needless to say Danni wasn't happy, she spent all of Monday sorting her flight back to QT.
Tue13th - Pretty much my first day alone on my travels so i did a bit of exploring, spent the day going up the Gondola to the top of the mountain, having some luch and a go on the luge, an 800m slide that you go down on a skateboard thing. all good fun, not as thrilling as some of my other adventures though. Spent the evening chilling with B, G & G and having a go on their petrol powered skateboard, spent most of my go falling off. then Gavin cooked a roast dinner, realised at that point i miss home.
Wed 14th - sitting in the sun by the lake catching up on my journal and enjoying the relaxation and me time. PLus today is the dreaded valentine day and i'm on the other side of the world to my valentine. Love and miss you John. (sorry if anyone feels ill now).
Thurs 15th - Spent the day up deer heights, a hill with roaming animals - from goats, buffalos, sheep to llamas. Pretty scenery and fun feeding the animals. I learnt the hard way not to shake my tub of food near the goats - they go mad, run over jumping on you and making loads of noise - very amusing to those watching not holding food.
Sun 18th - Dannin arrived back in Qt walked out of the airport without her rucksack - who needs clothes anyway (hey Danni?) Went straight to the bottle shop to celebrate her return especially as it gave me a froend today. Thanks Danni x
Spent the next few days chilling in QT wioth Danni, went for lunch at Winnies most days - We highly reccomend the Ceaser salad and Bruschetta. Went out on the 21st with all my Kiwi friends for my last night as a goodbye from them. Had great food, great company and a great nioght, very sad to be leaving.
- comments