Bungy Jumping - I don't think so

---

Queenstown is only just down the road from Wanaka (at least it is by New Zealand’s standards). It’s another lovely little town on the banks of a massive lake.
We stayed in a place called Bumbles just outside of the town on the waters edge. We ended up staying here for several days as the town and hostel were both so nice.

Queenstown is the centre of all things crazy in New Zealand. Whether you want to jump off a bridge or race down the rapids of a river holding nothing more than a small board here is the place to do it. Unfortunately whatever you decide to do its going to make a large dent in your wallet. As everyone comes here to do crazy things the prices have gone through the roof.
While I have no intention of jumping off anything I wouldn't mind having a go at jumping out of a plane, it’s a lot cheaper in the North Island so watch this space.

We got to Queenstown on St. Patrick’s Day so that night we headed off into the town. We found an Irish bar that was packed full of people (hardly any Irish) As the drinks here were very very expensive we soon moved on, and on, and on until we had seen almost all of Queenstown's night life.

Over the weekend we visited several places around Queenstown. On Saturday we headed up the mountain behind Queenstown. Rather than take the gondola up to the top we decided it would be far more fun to walk, I’m not sure who's idea that was. Anyway we got to the top. After spending ages taking photos Dan got board and decided that despite his fear of heights he would take the gondola down and leave us at the top. Not wanting to be lazy (and to save ourselves about $10) we walked back down.

We later discovered that there was another mountain behind the one which we had just climbed. Reaching over 1700 metres it was just calling out to be climbed so Sunday morning Carol Anne and I headed back up the same path on the way to Ben Lomand. By now Dan was totally fed up of climbing mountains so we left him behind to sleep!! It took about three hours to climb but just before we could get to the top the weather very quickly closed in and it started to rain. Rather than get stranded on our own at the top of a mountain we decided to come down. The right decision at the time but after descending for an hour the weather cleared up. Oh well that one got the better of us.

Sunday night was an early one as we had planned a three day hike. The idea is you take everything that you needed to survive for three days including pots pans and food to cook. We had none of the above but did have a plentiful supply of food that didn't need cooking.
The guide book said that it should be done in four days and three nights. (The guides are never right).
We drove to Glenorchy, the last town before the route. After that there was about an hour of driving on gravel tracks. We also had to cross three rivers, something I have never attempted in a car before. It probably wasn't the best idea but it worked and we kept our feet dry.
We eventually got to the start of the route at mid-day.
The first day was an easy walk and we got to the first hut by 5pm. The hut could hold 24 people but there were only three other people there so there was plenty of room. With no electricity bed time came at about 7pm when it got dark.
We were up and on our way at 6am feeling quite cold as the hut seemed to get down to sub zero. This section of the route was going to be the hardest. Climbing up a mountain over rocks and tree routes. It had rained the night before so the path had turned into a mini waterfall. The decent was even worse. Once we got to the bottom we had to negotiate several bogs. Had we been true hikers I’m sure we would have ploughed straight through without giving it a second thought, as we are not we took about an hour carefully finding hard ground like a game from Crystal Maze.
We got to the next hut and had some food (just to make the bag lighter).
This hut would normally be the place to stay for the second night but as we wanted to do the route in a day less we were soon onto the next section. After twelve hours of walking and fading light we were both getting quite tired and were very glad to see the next hut. The joy was short lived when we discovered that it was totally full of people.

Someone offered to move out of a bed so Carol Anne could have a bed to sleep in while I had to take the floor. As I had no bed I had to wait for everyone to stop talking and piss off to their beds before I could lay out my sleeping bag on the floor! The sleep was short as our fellow hikers were up again at 6am, not the longest sleep considering the long day I had just had.

The last day was quite easy and we were out of the woods by mid day. It was nice to be back in the car but I still have three rivers and many miles of gravel to negotiate before seeing any kind of tarmac road.

Two hours later we are back in the hostel and I get a nice hot shower!!

We had hoped that Dan had moved on by now as he was starting to annoy us both. We could not believe it when we arrived back at the hostel to find that he had not left. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hiding from him then slipped out of the hostel first thing in the morning. It turns out that he had no idea we had come back as the hostel staff told him we had not been seen. To this day he probably still thinks that we are lost in the mountains!!

---