Bungy Jumping, Luge, Fergburger, Alcoholic Teapots....can only be Queenstown

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We left Wanaka around 8.30am and headed for the wonderful place that is Queenstown. I had heard of Queenstown before we even started our trip and everyone that we had met in Australia had also told us that Queenstown was the best place in New Zealand. So there were high expectations! We stopped just outside the town at the AJ Hackett Bungy Centre, The Kawarau Bridge! This was the first ever commercial bungy site and I was orginally hoping to do my bungy here. However the Nevis was mentioned. The bridge bungy was 43m and the Nevis was a 'little' higher at 134m, the 2nd biggest bungy in the world. Of course I ended up choosing the Nevis. We booked our bungy for the following day and the watched Gina, a girl from our bus, do a tandem bungy with our driver Phillipa. After all the excitement we continued on to Queenstown where we booked in to the Base hostel. The first thing our entire bus did was go to a place called Fergburger. This was another thing that people, who had been to NZ, told us we had to try. It was a very small burger place and I didn't really see what all the fuss was about...until I had my first bite. Wow. I never thought that I would be able to forget McDonalds but in the 5 minutes it took me to eat the Fergburger, Ronald McDonald was a distant memory. It really was the greatest burger I had ever tasted and everyone agreed. After our 'life changing' burgers, the girls went shopping and the guys played pool over a couple of chilled beers. After pool, most people went for a sleep before the party we had planned for our bus. However myself, Andy, Ben (Tobias) and Dave decided the best way to pass a couple of hours was a good old game of monopoly...with a few more beers! After a tense game we decided to get ready for happy hour at 8. The real party started at 9 when our entire bus was out for a last big party before everyone went their separate ways 😞. We had free shots and plenty of 2 for 1 beer vouchers. At 11pm we moved from the hostel bar to a bar called 'World Bar'. Here we had 100 free drinks between our bus. To obtain these free drinks you had to give a password over the bar. The password was "Oi Gingernuts"! The free drinks lasted about forty minutes and then it was on to the teapots....yes teapots. The cocktails were all served in teapots for some reason but they were still very nice! After the night was over we finished off with our second Fergburger! Yum yum!
It was nice to get a lie in! 11.30 and I was still in bed 😊. We had to meet at the bungy place at 1.45pm so I had a nice relaxing couple of hours getting ready. Once we were there we had to be weighed and put into order....heaviest first. So once again I was towards the back of the queue. So annoying! It is a 40 minute drive to the Nevis highwire and the mini bus of 18 people was very quiet. You could tell that everyone was getting more and more nervous. When we arrived we had to wear what we were going to jump in and put the harness on and get weighed again. I decided, as a true patriot, I was going to wear my England shirt. It was very cold but I was determined to jump in my football shirt. After we had been weighed we got our first glimps of the cable car that you bungy from.....I'm not going to repeat what most people said but it was one of two, four letter words followed by "that's high". The first cart of people were taken over. The 6 big boys of the group. Before the cart had come back for the second group the first person had jumped. A huge scream was let out and then a gasp from everyone watching. He fell so fast and so far, we couldn't quite believe it! The excitement I felt at the skydive started to come back. I was on the third cart of people, to go over to the cable car. When we arrived at the car all we could hear was thumping rock music. System of a Down! I loved it immeadiately and it made me even more excited. Now I have found, whilst skydiving and bungy jumping, that I am not a very patient person when it comes the queues! I was pacing around the car wishing I could have been the first to jump. I don't know why, I just wanted to be first. Unfortunately I am not very heavy and there was no way I was getting to jump any sooner that 14th! First from our bus to jump was Luke, 2nd Andy who couldn't release himself and had to come back up upside down (what a silly boy...), 3rd our very own Dan Williams! He looked nervous but it didn't stop him diving out with no delay. When he came back up, he was buzzing, saying that it was amazing and the best thing he had ever done. This made me want to jump even more! 3 jumps later it was my go 😊. I sat in the chair and the Kiwi jump masters were making fun of my England shirt whilst they changed the bungy cord to the lightweight cord. I checked my hand to see if I was shaking...no. I couldn't believe it! I thought I would be terrified but nothing! Once I was connected I shuffled to the edge...looked down...it was high. Very high...I looked up at the camera and blew a kiss..."3-2-1 Bungy!"...with that I launched myself off the ledge, doing my best swan dive impression. You start to face down almost straight away and then the speed hits you. You fall so fast and unlike the skydive, you actually feel like you are falling. It was an amazing 8 seconds before the cord kicked in and even when it has you still continue to fall. At this point the stupid smile I had on the skydive had returned and I was loving every second of it. I bounced once. I bounced twice, time to release myself....ah. I hadn't realised but nobody had told me how to turn myself up the right way! I saw a cord and guessed that it must of been it. I started pulling. Nothing. I pulled harder. Still nothing. I decided to stop pulling incase it was the wrong cord and I fell to the ground. Now all I could think of was the piss taking Mr Williams was going to give me. After 2 minutes of being dragged 134m upside down I had some serious head rush. When I finally reached the top, the Kiwi's had got everyone left on the cable car to start laughing and taunting me! I wanted to unleash the inner Rocky but unfortunately I was hanging upside down like a dead animal at the slaughter! So I gave in and smiled! After everyone else had been, we got our dvd's and made our way back to the hostel. We watched everyone's dvd's and in each one you see the Kiwi jump master tell the person how to release their cord...except mine! I think he did it on purpose because of my England shirt! Despite being dragged back upside down it was still an amazing experience and I would definately do another one! That evening the remainder of the group went to watch a film at the cinema...Sex in the City! It was bloody awful but the crying girls seemed to like it! We went to a bar but didn't drink much before going to bed.
The next morning I had another good lie in before we decided to go to the Luge. We went with Luke and Ben the American cousins. They had already done the Luge in Rotorua and said that it was good fun. We made our way up the Gondola and at the top we got our first really good view of Queenstown. It had snow covered mountains, a beautifall lake and the town wasn't actually that big. The view was incredible but I was up here for the Luge. A Luge is basically a bit of plastic, with wheels and a stick that you move backwards and forwards to brake and release the brake. There is no accelerator because you are going down a hill! We had to take a chair lift to get to the top of the track and then it was on to the 'scenic' route for our first run. It was very funny and I nearly crashed a couple of times. Once we finished, it was back up to the top for the advanced route. This was a lot faster but even more fun. At the bottom of the run Luke came flying off his Luge! He just found it funny. We had 5 goes on the advanced route and on the last one Ben went flying into a fence and cut himself up, including a huge lump on his knuckle! He, like his cousin, found it funny! After the Luge Me, Luke, Ben and Adam went to the cinema (again) and watched Speed Racer. It was a lot better than Sex in the City but still not great! That night we tried to get everyone out for another drunken night...didn't happen. There were about 5 of us that went out and got drunk, it was ok but not great because everyone was too tired 😞.
The following morning Dan went off early to Ski but I didn't because I would have needed lessons and I didn't think that a day of lessons would have been enough! Instead I had a nice day doing...nothing! I looked around the lake because the winter festival was starting and I even got my hair cut in a salon! That was my highlight of the day. The woman washed my hair with 3 or 4 different shampoo's and then dried and cut it for me! I nearly fell asleep when she was washing my hair! Dan came back and said he had had a good day skiing and then we got to the important business of drinking! Well it was our last night in Queenstown. It was a lot better than the previous night but there were very few people from our bus left. We still managed a good night with more teapots and another Fergburger!
Our final morning came and we weren't leaving until 2.30pm because our kiwi bus was full. We managed to get a shuttle bus instead though. In the few hours we had, I went to the cinema (...again) to watch Kung Fu Panda! The best of the 3 films I had seen in Queenstown. Dan had another Fergburger! Our total Fergburger consumption was Steve=3 and Dan=6 (we were only there 4 nights)!!! After the film we said our goodbyes to Luke and Ben and made our way to the bus station. Queenstown had been amazing and I only wish I had more money and more time there. We were off to Christchurch, where a nice suprise was waiting for us...

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Photos

Steve & Dan
Time for a Late Night Ferg!

Steve, Bethan, Dave & Dan
This was Dave's goodbye! :(