Taking The Plunge

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Geo: -44.6987, 169.133

The days had been counting down and I knew I had to face one of my fears. So far bungy jumping was in the back of my mind as we left Fox Glacier and headed towards Wanaka for some Skiing and Snowboarding at Treble Cone.
We stayed in a small rest area at the base of a bridge just before Haast. It was a pretty wet night with some very heavy rain thrashing itself in to the camper and where the river had increased dramatically over night.
We pushed on the following day to Wanaka, hoping the weather was clearer over the pass, but it was not. It continued to rain throughout the day. We didn't do too much in Wanaka unfortunately because we were looking forward to visiting it but the rain kept us quiet as we visited Puzzling World and caught up with Kayla who I had met in Newcastle from my work in NSW.

We were most looking forward to our Skiing and Snowboarding as we had one free ski pass valid for 6 days which was a deal when you hire with Jucy Campers. We hired the stuff in town which was pretty reasonable at about $50 per person.
Treble Cone had just received 60cm of fresh powder from the previous 24 hours, so the rain may have been bad the day before but it blessed us with some white gold.
We thought we needed chains so we decided to get the shuttle from the bottom carpark to the top, only to realize it was fine.
It was soon clear how well Jucy had done with the deal as there were many other Jucy campers at the top.

I had only been Snowboarding a few times before and I wasn't the best. I had to stay in the beginners section for a little bit to regain the amazing skills I had last time. Finally I was runway ready as we hit the proper slopes.
Anna did skiing and did very well, I am pleased to say I got better as the day progressed. The weather was quite cloudy but the view was still stunning looking out over lake Wanaka and beyond.
I found it quite unnerving when other people would zoom past as I was falling over.
For the last hour or so in the day they opened up one of the runs and about 98% of people could be seen heading for the newly opened section which instantly meant that hardly anyone was on our run and almost made us feel as if we were the only people on the mountain.

It was great fun, a great day but Anna had mistakenly left my bag at the car park but with a stroke of lucky events we managed to get it back, but my snowboard was a different story. I had somehow chipped my snowboard, maybe from one of the 3 poles I hit during the day, but I had not noticed until the guy at the hire place saw.

The hiring guy wasn't very happy and what made it worse was that our cheapness of not taking the $3 insurance meant I had to fork out $100 to repair the damage. That will teach us!
So much for the free ski pass.
All was well in the end, we made the drive to Queenstown for the night.

Our day in Queenstown saw us hike to the top of the Gondola and do a bit of Luging followed by some shopping, booking the bungy jumping and Fergberger. It's always awesome going back to Queenstown.
The following morning was very stressful for me. I admit I was scared shitless of going bungy jumping and I was very nervous, but there was not backing out.
We were told we were going to jump as soon as we got there which didn't give us much chance to see other people jump to give us confidence. Anna was heroic and showed me how it was done. She did amazing. Then it was my turn.
It had to be done and when they countdown all you know is that you have to jump. And as funny as it sounds it wasn't that bad and quite fun. It happens quickly and I don't even remember half of it. We were happy and glad we plucked up the courage to do it and it was worth the sleepless night and damage to my masculinity.

Needless to say I was fine after that for the trip back towards Christchurch. We wanted to visit Mount Cook again as it was raining when we were there last time. This time was no different except for the added 100km winds that shook the camper all night long.
We got back to Christchurch in one piece after a quick lunch stopover at my aunt and uncles farm.
We spent the last week enjoying time with my family and visiting the Canterbury Museum which was really interesting.

Over all it was another amazing road trip in a country that offers so much. It's so nice to be able to share it with Anna who is very much in love with New Zealand. Trips like this keep giving us reasons to come back.

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