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New Zealand was the next country on my itinerary and I landed at Christchurch airport and soon got a bus into town, however town was "shut" due to the earthquake. Obviously I knew things would have been affected but I just wasn't aware to what extent, you could not even get anywhere near it and there were barricades reinforced by military personnel. As I got off the bus the driver pointed me in the general direction I needed to go, probably about a mile down the road. As I neared some buildings I spotted Burger King which soon became my point of interest and my stomach compass was heading directly for it. As I got within 5 meters of the building it became obvious that it had been affected by the earth quake, the inside of it had been shaken to the ground and the structure looked un-sound with other debris scattered everywhere. I knew my burger hopes had been shattered but it was nothing compared to the shattered lives of anyone in the building when the earth quake struck. I soon forgot my hunger and just hoped everyone managed to get out okay. I wandered around for about an hour looking for the cheapest accommodation option and eventually found it. A very quiet hostel with 4 bed dorms for a good price. I booked one night and settled in, I was keen not to waste time there so I was quick to sort out my travel arrangements to Queenstown (South west) which is where I really wanted to be. I found a cheap flight and got a bus timetable to get me back to the airport. The quiet mood of the hostel suited me fine after the days travelling so I was content to just relax and grab an early night. There was an English guy in my room who had been very unfortunate to have his bag lost at the airport(my worst nightmare). He seemed to have taken it pretty well and we got talking for a while about the usual, where have you been, where are you going. Having very little possessions, I made a brew for us both and gave him a smoke which I could see him eyeing up. However, just like his cigarette, this new friendship was quickly distinguished when it was time for sleep. His snoring during the night sounded like a choir of tone deaf pigs and myself and the other occupants of the room were awake through most of it. His recent spell of bad luck did not sway my thoughts of choking the life out of him so I could enjoy the undisturbed sleep I craved. Whilst that might of made a more interesting post in this blog I resorted to inserting my headphones into my ears as far as they would go enabling me to get some decent sleep. Two hours after I had woken that morning I was back on a plane heading toward Queenstown. It was only an hour flight, and as the small passenger jet approached the airport the mountains came in to view. The air strip was right in the middle of them and landing there was just fantastic, definitely the best airport location I have ever been too. I will not go into detail about the mountains just yet because they will be mentioned in their own section shortly. I had pre-booked accommodation in Queenstown which turned out to be on the front of a huge lake, I loved the surrounding mountains and with the lake and sunshine out I just thought it was a beautiful place. Queenstown is the adrenalin capital of New Zealand, there is so much going on there even though some of the activities are quite expensive. I had arrived a little bit early for the snow so I soon became aware that I wouldn't be able to get on a snowboard, I was not phased though because I just loved the location and there were so many other good things to be done that I had not experienced before. I had made friends with 2 Australian guys and an English girl in my dorm room and after mentioning it briefly it was not long before we decided we should do the 2nd highest bungee jump in the world standing at 134 meters. Needless to say we did not do anything excessive that night and we were all up early feeling giddy about our leap of faith that we imagined would scare us all to death. I have never been very interested in bungee jumping before and having been skydiving I did not feel it would come anywhere close. I had spoken to a few people who had all said that if you're going to Queenstown you have to do it! The closer we got to our destination the more of a reality it became and thoughts of "why am I doing this" where becoming increasingly frequent. It was non-refundable if you didn't do it, not only that but I just kept telling myself that it was going to happen and I would definitely not be failing. The bungee was based in a big cable car type affair and you had to get another smaller carriage across the cable to get to it. So there was no bridge just this small cable car suspended in the air by the cable which seemed to give another dimension of terror. The view was phenomenal and as I was enjoying it attaching my harness I was informed that I would be going first out of the group. I would be telling a lie if I said I wasn't just a little bit apprehensive, but regardless I just stepped up and sat in the chair while the man attached the rope to my legs and other safety equipment. He started talking to his co-worker asking if he had forgotten anything and offering other comments that were obviously the normal procedure to put the fear of god into anybody about to plummet 134 meters. I was far too busy sh*****g myself to give him any acknowledgement or satisfaction with these comments, so I just smiled for the camera even though my face did not reflect what was going through my head.
I was all ready to go and once I stood up I could see the edge and the thought of leaping off it was not an altogether pleasant one. I had to take a breath and say to the guy "I'm not too sure about this!". He just told me to go for it and it would all be over in under a minute. I did not require anything other words of encouragement. What was I worried about, this was going to be awesome, I had paid for it so I obviously wanted to do it, and if I died - what a way to go!!! I shuffled toward the edge, because that's all you can do with the rope around your legs, and he counted down from 3. Pure adrenalin taking over I jumped and the feeling I got was something that is hard to describe, it was just fantastic, the acceleration from the free fall sending me directly towards the earth, and the river underneath was soon upon me despite being very small from the platform. Once the rope stretched and I bounced back up the only thing I could think was "I want to do that again!". No other bungee would compare now, so if I was to do another one it would have to be highest which I think is around 200 meters. The skydive I did back in England still took the prize for whole experience, but the bungee had its own qualities, for a start you have to jump off the edge yourself, you're not tied to an instructor in a plane who basically does all the work. This is what made it scary yet totally awesome at the same time. I was happy to of set the standard for my roommates to follow, they all did very well and everyone jumped which made it a perfect day. I found out later that if you do it naked then you get the jump for free, though I am not sure if we would of all done that somehow. There was never any doubt that we would be having lots drinks that night, and that we did making it one of my favourite full days to date on my tour. Queenstown can be a party town if you want it to be (and sometimes if you don't), there is always something going on. I also played in a friendly football match with the people from my hostel which was pretty good too, though the girls that played where pretty dirty.haha. I spent 4 days in Queenstown and even at that early stage I could not help think that New Zealand was amazing and my favourite country so far. It's not easy to say that with the stunning beaches of Thailand, the amazing time I had in Australia but it's still something which I stand by. I also took a jet boat ride through a canyon which left you with your heart in your mouth because the guy in charge of the boat would be missing huge rocks by inches. I loved it, but I became aware that the other passengers on the powerboat (maybe about 7) where all pensioners. As we sped along the canyon at ridiculous speeds one woman's hearing aid came flying off, and I was sure another lady's heart wasn't going to hold out as we 360'd around a sharp bend. However they had all obviously had their Weetabix that morning and loved it. The boat ride was followed with a tour through some mountains then on to a gold mine. The age difference continued as we met up with another group and it was more than obvious that I was the youngest one there. I would of thought I was on the wrong trip had my two Australian friends not done it the day before! They were all 60 years plus, and at one point I did get that feeling you may have got when your very young getting dragged around some market by your grandparents. It was a great day though and we saw some of the places used for filming in Lord of The Rings, we even tried our hand at gold mining, not that I gained much wealth from it.
I was nearing my time in Queenstown and I didn't have a plan. Public transport is not as flexible as Australia and there are no major companies like the Greyhound taking you everywhere you want to go, or as frequent. I decided to hire a car to see the best of New Zealand so I booked one for 9 days which I would have to drop off in Auckland on the North Island. I picked the car up from Queenstown airport and after nearly suffering a heart attack because my card failed leaving the $1000 deposit, I managed to sort it (just) using some quick internet sorcery and get the keys. I had booked the cheapest car available which turned out to be a very small Toyota Yaris, in gold. I had my car, a full tank and a map which would help me head over to the west coast and up to Fox Glacier about 200km from my start point. The surrounding mountains and lakes I passed on that first trip where just out of this world, no words or pictures will do them justice you really have to be there to experience them. Autumn had was just coming through, and the array of colours on the trees just added to the spectacular landscape. Mountains and great views might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I would challenge anyone to go there and not have a smile on their face driving through the routes I took. You could literally drive for hours and not see any other vehicles totally undisturbed on long straight roads as far as the eye can see. Then huge rolling hills, or up the side of a mountain on thin windy roads each corner presenting another view of the landscape that was better than the last. It did not matter what weather system had set in to the area, the rain would make it look lush and make you feel like you had been dropped right in the middle of the elements, the cloud hanging below the mountain peaks gave the place a mood that seemed to look better than any clear sky. With my Ipod playlist refined to blast out my favourite tracks I would not of changed a thing. Previously I have mentioned the weather spoiling my day and praying for sunshine, well this was a place for me the weather could not spoil. You can spend a small fortune on trips and things to do in New Zealand but for me just driving that west coast was one of the best experiences I had encountered. I gave myself a pleasant headache whilst driving trying to think of ways to describe the views to you and now reading it back I still don't feel like I have come anywhere close but it should hopefully give you some idea.
I arrived in fox glacier after a 4 hour drive and I was able to book the following day for my Glacier hike, lucky really that I got there in time to do so. With having my car I decided I would save on a nights accommodation and sleep in it. It was late and couldn't really warrant paying for accommodation. I can confirm that Toyota definitely did not have sleep in mind when they designed that model, and yes you might say - why would they. The experience was less than average, it was tiny and it was very hard to get any level of comfort. I could compare it to game of twister for 8 hours, or maybe if I had managed to get some pictures of the ordeal it would have made the centre spread in Insomniacs Weekly. Surprisingly I managed to get a few hours' sleep but maybe not so surprising was that I was more than happy to get accommodation the following night. It would be the day of my Glacier hike anyway and I would be getting back too late to start driving somewhere else.
It was a very short bus ride to the foot of Foxes Glacier and we split into groups with the 3 guides that were working that day. My group was filled mainly with Asians, and a few English people with about 9 of us in total. One of the young Chinese girls was full figured (I'm being polite because she was huge) and I did wonder how she might go on during the day. She could have been super fit for all I knew but I had my reservations. We had walked about 20 minutes up the side of the mountain that would lead us on to the Glacier when she pretty much keeled over. She was on the floor feeling dizzy and could not go any further. I'm not really sure what she thought a Glacier hike would involve but I felt a bit sorry for, obviously having had to many noodles the night before. We had to wait for another guide to come down to take her and her boyfriend back to the base. We continued on and made it onto the Glacier where we got issued crampons (basically spikes that attached to the bottom of your walking boots), you wouldn't get very far without them because the Glacier is just a 10km stretch of ice, leading up to the mountain peaks. It filled the valley with huge mountains either side, again the view was just spectacular and I managed to get plenty of pictures which I think will give it some scale. It was a full day hike and we were all tired by the end of it. The English guys got talking to me so we had a cold beer afterwards, but I was much more interested in an early night and a sleep which would definitely be an improvement on the previous night.
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