Bungee jumping Kiwi Birds?

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Day 116-117
30th-31st December

Today was the day we were off to Queenstown, Gillie and Simon’s friend from London, Stef had kindly invited all of us plus a couple we know from London, Dan and Julie to stay at his house to celebrate New Year. Gillie, Simon and Stef had also booked in to do a bungee jump at AJ Hacketts (first bungee jump in the world), so we had to be in Queenstown for that. We said goodbye to Simon’s family who had been really cool and headed off. Queenstown was only a couple of hours away and soon we at Stef’s house. It was a gorgeous day again and we all decided to have a couple of drinks on the roof before driving to the bungee site. For anyone that is going to visit New Zealand, both Ellory and I would highly recommend going to Queenstown. It is one of the most beautiful cities either one of us has seen. The city itself is nestled by a lake and surrounded by mountains and Stef’s house had a gorgeous view of this.

Soon it was time to head off for Gillie, Simon and Stef to do bungee jumping! Gillie had been trying to persuade me to give it a go, and although I had told myself many months ago there was no way I was going to jump of a bridge, I was starting to sway! Ellory thought I was absolutely crazy but when we got there I thought to myself, “Why not, when am I going to do this again?” and I found myself paying to do a bungee jump! The four of us went up onto the bridge while Ellory and everyone else watched from the viewing point. We’d had to be weighed before we went up there, and our weight’s written on our hands (the shame!) and we ended up being separated. Gillie and I were together on one point of the bridge and Simon and Stef at the other point. Gillie and Simon had originally planned to do a tandem jump but the weather conditions did not permit it so Gillie now had to jump on her own. Later she told me how glad she was that I had been there with her to keep her calm! I was in front of her in the queue and before I knew it, I was getting a harness put on me and lots of bungee cords attached. The instructor guided me out on to the edge of the platform and told me the best jump technique (swan dive in case you’re wondering). It was pretty windy up there but before I had time to get nervous the instructor counted me down, three, two, one, bungee! And out I jumped. It was freaking amazing! It was over really quickly and soon the boat was there underneath me, I grabbed the pole they were holding up and they pulled me into the boat, took my harness off me and ferried me to the side of the river. I was gibbering like an absolute fool and had the biggest grin on my face, that was one hell of an adrenaline rush! I rushed back up to where Ellory was waiting and we both watching Stef, then Gillie and finally Simon jump. When we were all back at the top the 4 of us had matching silly grins and were jumping around. It was brilliant! Ellory had got some excellent pictures so there is evidence of this stark raving mad moment of my life. Well after that craziness we were all in the mood to celebrate! We headed off to the supermarket and bought BBQ stuff and drinks and proceeded to have a huge drunken party on the roof terrace of Stef’s house. It was a very funny night, with silly Michael Jackson dancing and lots of singing. I know it was a day early, not being New Year’s Eve and all but what the hey!

After a bit of a lie in, the first part of the day was going to pick up our hire car. Gillie and Simon dropped us off at Go Rentals and then they all went off to Arrowtown, a little community just outside of Queenstown. Ellory and I had decided to do another one of our wedding presents that day and just spend some time together by ourselves. There was a Kiwi Park in Queenstown and as that was a present from Helen and Ian we headed on down.

Kiwi birds are nocturnal so this park has a special dark house where you can go and see them as it is nearly impossible any other way. We paid our entrance fee, got our audio tours and headed off. Obviously first on the list was seeing the Kiwi birds, it was also feeding time for them so we didn’t have a moment to waste. The kiwi birds at this park are on a reverse day/night thing. So for them, it is dark during the day so they are awake and people can see them, when the park shuts at night, they simulate daylight for the kiwi birds so they can sleep. We went quietly into the dark house and went up to the glass. It took a couple of minutes for our eyes to adjust, but suddenly there they were! It was such a cool experience seeing such a famous animal and they are much bigger than you expect! Ellory and I were thinking that they would not be much bigger than a pigeon, in fact they are bigger than a chicken. The kiwi bird was delicately walking around and using its very long, narrow beak to dig for food in the undergrowth. A keeper then came in and fed them, putting the food in tubes so that the birds would have to work a bit to get the food. They were very cute looking and we spent ages there watching them. The audio tour explained to us that they actually have breeding pairs at the park and the eggs were due to hatch very soon. I was very impressed by this as I know it is pretty difficult to get any wild animal to breed in captivity and I had heard that it was especially difficult for the Kiwi birds. It was good to know that the conditions there for them were just right and they were doing their bit to increase the population of this endangered species. Unfortunately we have no photographs of them as you cannot use flash photography but you’ll have to take our word for it that it was amazing.

After seeing the kiwi birds we walked around the rest of the park looking at all the other types of birds they had there. The park is set in the middle of Queenstown, but they have created a forest like refuge. The only way you would know you were in a city is because we could hear people starting to get ready for New Year! We had a great afternoon, so thank you to Helen and Ian for making sure we got to see the symbol of New Zealand!

We were pretty hungry by this point and went to go and get some food. After parking the car we went for a wander and found a nice looking thai restaurant. It had been ages since we had thai food so we decided to check it out. It was delicious! We had a table on the balcony overlooking the street and we had yummy mango drinks and spring rolls before tucking into fish and stir fried veggies. Feeling very full we headed back to Stef’s house to get ready to celebrate the New Year. Stef’s garden is on a steep slope and we all climbed up to the top of it with drinks and watched the sun set over the mountains. Being so far south, this happened about 11pm and there was just enough time to grab the bottle of champagne and walk down to the lake, find a great spot where we could see the fireworks and settle in. We were all a little drunk by this point and soon we could hear the countdown to 2011. Ellory cracked the champagne and as all the fireworks started there was lots of hugs with everyone and Happy New Years! Ellory and I moved off to the side slightly to watch the fireworks and wish each other Happy New Year. 2010 had been a completely awesome year for both of us and we hoped 2011 would be just as great as we started our first New Year as a married couple. It was great to be there with our friends, Gillie, Simon, Dan and Julie as well.

We hope everyone had a great New Year, we missed you all but now it was 2011, the year we would be returning home!

Love Liz xxx

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