Rafting the shotover

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Day 157 - Sunday 24 February

After checking out of the hostel we said goodbye to christchurch and started our 9 hour drive to Queenstown. I took first shift on the driving and I've got to say we passed by some fantastic scenery. The roads are great to drive on, they may only be single lane but with no other cars on the winding roads there a pleasure to drive. On the way we stopped off at Lake Tekapo which is kind if similar to Lake Windamere back home, and we also took a detour to Mount Cook which was also impressive.

Early evening we had arrived in Queenstown a mecca for adrenaline junkies . It had been such a glorious day that I couldn't believe it started to rain just as we arrived. The clouds have just appeared from nowhere. Even though it was raining we were hungry so headed into town for a bite to eat and a short exploration. Because of the type of activities on offer i'd expected the town to be full of young people but surprisingly there seems to be more older people here.

After going back to the hostel and playing the PSP before i went to bed, I got up again at 4am to watch the Carling Cup final.

Day 158 - Monday 25 February

With the Carling cup finishing at half past six in the morning I went back to sleep and it was lunchtime before I resurfaced. Its a sunny day so we headed back into town to carry on our exploration.

As its only a small town it didn't take very long so we decided to head off to Kawarau bridge bungy home of the worlds first bungy jump. 43m high you jump off a bridge towards the river below. Im not actually going to do a bungy jump, instead im going to go skydiving next week as its only a little more expensive and for some reason I think it will be less scary. As such its easy for me to say this but looking over the bridge it didn't seem that bad. Before I thought there's no way I'd do it but now I think I could fairly easily. I might be as nervous as hell but I could do it. However there is another jump in town called the Nevis which at 134m high does look shitscary.

After dinner it was time to do my laundry again before I hit the internet, then played some more PSP. Russ had bought Championship manager 2007 for only a pound back in Thailand and now im addicted.

Day 159 - Tuesday 26 February

Waking up quite early I thought I might as well watch the Man City v Everton game but its not actually on the tv here, so instead I pottered around for a bit before heading into town to use the internet.

This afternoon were going to try our hand at white water rafting. I'd expected most of the people doing it to be quite young so was surprised to find we were pretty much the youngest there. Infact everybody else in our raft must have been in their mid fifties. Having said that they were an ok bunch of people. I was however a little dissapointed with the experience. Rafting courses around the world are given a grade between 1 and 5 with 5 being the highest you can raft. Our route was between 3 and 5 so I was expecting it to be good fun, but it didn't seem that fast or scary. The scenery was pleasant enough and the drive up their along the hills was pretty scary along a narrow dirt track with a huge drop below and no safety barriers, but for $155 I thought it was about $50 too expensive.

After getting dinner we headed off to the local cinema as its only $9 on a tuesday and we watched the film Jumper about a bloke who can telleport anywhere he wants. I liked it but Russ thought it was crap. We then went to one of the bars where we had a voucher giving us 2 drinks for the price of one until midnight meaning its under a quid a pint. It was a good night and inside there were some really hot girls but unfortunately they knew it and were just teasing. How I wish I could teleport back to Thailand for the night.

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