Bungy?! Nah... Vodka & Ice...Yeah!!

---

Back on earth we drove to the Karawera bridge where AJ Hackett first came up with the idea of leaping off a bridge tied to a piece of elastic!! The home of Bungy jumping, it started at this bridge in the 1980's. As any attraction of its kind, they had a couple of viewing platforms for those of us who weren't stupid enough to do it. It made me feel sick and s***t cared just watching those mad people! Dave thought about it briefly, but only briefly!

Back in town we decided to visit a funky bar called Minus 5. The bar is built in what is basically a big walk in Freezer - everything in there is made out of ice and is full of ice sculptures. You only get to go in for ½ hour with a barman who makes you a Absolut vodka cocktail that you sip out of glass cut out of frozen ice which you get to smash at the end. It was cool (literally)!!! The temperature was actually about -7 C!

Queenstown is a small town which has the feeling of a ski town, full of cool dudes wearing beanie hats (many ski resorts around), lots of backpackers and people in campervans like us. Its the end of the ski season and soon the start of the walking season as with all the mountains around there is a lot to walk and see.

After a second night in Queenstown, we leave it behind to start heading back north, on the way we stop at a Gold mining field near Cromwell. We walked around (finally some heat! Shorts & T-shirt weather!) and at the end did a bit of gold panning and found 4 very very small flecks of gold which we now carry around in a glass bottle as a souvenir!

As we drove further north the weather got windier and windier, moving the van around a bit, so we decided to carry on all the way back to Christchurch. The things you have to consider when sleeping in a Ford Transit Van! By carrying on to Christchurch, we were then in reach of a town called Kaikoura, which was our destination for the next day. The drive was long but by about 8pm we had covered about 600 kms and were in Christchurch ready for food and bed.

---

Photos

Minus 5!
Ice Bar in Queenstown

Cool cocktail!
Would you like ice with that!

Gold Fever!
Panning for Gold nr Cromwell

Found a Nugget??
No, just a few flakes!

Lake Tekapo
Beautiful colours but very windy. Look at the waves on the lake! Tekapo is said to have the clearest air in the Southern Hemisphere, but just too much of it that day!