December 16th

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Dunedin, New Zealand, South Island - December 16th - 6:45pm
Lee and I set the alarm for 7:00am as we were going to run into town to see if we could do the bungy jumping thing. Lee told me to get up at 7:10am but I wasn’t going anywhere. We eventually got up at 8:00am and figured we’d stop in on the way and see if there was room, if not then we’d do it next time.

I was up from about 6:00am till then as I was scared to go bungy jumping. I wanted to do it but I didn’t want to do it. I was dreaming about it and everything. No idea what to do. We finally got up and ready and headed down for breakfast, I wasn’t very hungry as I was unsure what today was going to bring. Didn’t want to eat too much as I didn’t want to hack up my breakfast later.

New Zealand is covered with sheep. It's almost as if a giant came around with a giant salt shaker filled with sheep and sprinkled them everywhere. There is about 40 million sheep in New Zealand. Farmers need about 3000 to 4000 sheep to make a living. It's crazy. There are lots of deer but not nearly as many compared with the sheep.

We all boarded the bus and said goodbye to Millennium the hotel. I was told it was about 45minutes to Kawarau Suspension Bridge which in my mind seemed like 10minutes. So I got off the bus tried to keep up the running man ahead of me. Nothing seemed to stop Lee, he was bound and determined to go bungy jumping with or without me. I got up to the counter with him, they informed us that this was a non-refundable, non-transferable event. I turned my back and voila he’s paid for me…I guess I’m going now…maybe…we complete our check in and get weight and head up to the bridge. We stood in line and I was scared, our buses were still there watching as they saw a few jumps but they had to head to the winery before our turn was up. I saw a young boy jump, must have only been 10 or 12 years old. No fear, then another girl, must have been 16 or 18 years old. She simply asked what she had to do and dove off the platform, kids have no fear. Then this Asian woman got up on the platform, she was so scared, she wasn’t going anywhere, she was holding on to the railing for dear life. They had all 3 guys holding here there, one behind her so she couldn’t step back, one holding her right hand so she couldn’t grab on to anything and one on her left side prying her fingers off the handle. They say that they don’t force anyone down but it seemed to me that they were doing that! Haha she wanted to go though, she wasn’t in tears or saying no, she was just a little scared. They give you 3 options…bob above the water, touch it, or get fully immersed. Since we had a 3 hour bus ride again we choose the safe one and to just bob over, they couldn’t guarantee that it would just be our hands that got wet so we didn’t want to take the chance. Next it’s our turn…

Lee and I were doing tandem…I think that’s the only way that I was going, was if I took someone else down with me. They got us all harnessed up and told us to stand at the edge. There was a bridge immediately in front of us that I didn’t take my eyes off of. I figured that if I looked down then I wasn’t going to go anywhere. They counted us down…3…2…Oh my gosh is this really happening?? I love you mom and dad!....1….and we were off. They told us to jump straight out but I think it was more of a lean till you fall over thing. So I guess we did Bungy leaning not bungy jumping. The free-fall was for about 4 seconds from 43 meters. We were off and dangling there in no time. It went a lot faster than I could have imagined but I still managed to scream the WHOLE way down. Lee was able to strap his camera to his hand and he taped the whole thing from strapping in to safely in the boat. It’s quiet the video to watch, I did have a choice word in there so just disregard that when we eventually get around to showing you, otherwise it’s a pretty cool video. I ended up enjoying it. It was much scarier then skydiving but it was still fun. Don’t know if I could do it again or even do it by myself but I’m glad I did it.

I think anything I do here on in, in life is going to seem a little boring to skydiving and bungy jumping. Some of you might think that I’m spelling it wrong but in the land down here they spell it bungy not bungee.

We got safe and sound on land, I turned around just in time to see the fellow behind me jump and he got his whole head wet, crazyness. We hiked back up to the building, where we got certificates saying that we completed it, as well as a t-shirt saying we were official jumpers, but in our case…leaners.

Our bus drivers were nice enough to come back to get us, as I mentioned before they had to go to the winery. It was only about a 10minute walk but it was on the highway and they didn’t feel comfortable with us walking there. We met up with the rest of the tour in the cave at the winery, Gibbston Valley Winery. Needless to say we were the highlight of the day. Some guests were quiet upset that they had to leave before they saw us jump but it all happened to fast we had no time to arrange it. We tried 3 different wines (Lee and I only tried 2 as we were a little late), seems to be the typical 3, Riesling, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir. We were in a man-made cave though. They specifically made it to store wine. They blasted everything out and covered the walls with concrete to reinforce them and keep the dampness out. It was very neat. We slowly made our way back to the bus to continue our adventure. I learned that at the end of the row of grapes the winery plants a rose bush; they do this because the roses get the diseases before the grapes do which prevents the grapes from dying off and being a waste. I thought that was interesting.

We were off to lunch in Clyde, we drove for about an hour and finally stopped to eat. We ate at the Post Office Café, quiet the name if you ask me. The food was very different, I wasn’t a fan of it but I did try most stuff. We then boarded the bus for the remaining 2 ½ hours of our trip.

Chas said his goodbyes to us just before Dunedin as he had to catch another bus back home (Wanaka). Cara listen/read carefully…Lee went up and said his farewells and thanked him for the great 2 days we had, he also asked if he knew about Adventure Consultants since he’s from Wanaka. (Adventure Consultants is the business that Rob Hall owned. Rob Hall was a great mountain climber but passed away in the tragedy of 1996 on Mount Everest. If you’ve read ‘Into Thin Air’ then you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t read it ,I suggest reading it, even if you aren’t into climbing. It’s a great story but with a tragic ending.) Apparently Chas works with Guy (the current owner of Adventure Consultants) and knew Rob Hall very well. It gave me and still does give me the hebby jebbies to meet someone that knew Rob Hall so well. Chas was great friends with Rob and knows his wife very well also. Apparently Chas lost another great friend to Mount Everest about 2 weeks ago. I wish that we knew this early on in the trip but like Lee said if we did then we would have drilled Chas with questions. So I think it’s a good idea we didn’t know. Just crazy to think how small the world really is.

We finally pulled into Dunedin around 3:50pm. We drove around and saw some of the major highlights of Dunedin. We stopped at the train station and our bus driver said that we have about 15mins here and then he’d drop us off at the Octagon, which is their shopping centre. Lee and I looked at each other, we were sure we had to be back at 5:00pm to sail at 6:00pm but our bus driver proceeded to tell us that the ship was late coming in today. The fog was so bad that the ship couldn’t get into the channel. The tour operator (Tony) has never seen anything like it, so they were about 2 hours late to dock. Lee always seems to miss the fun/disasters on the ship. We were wondering if any of the morning tours were cancelled and how the guests reacted; it could have been a complete nightmare. Lee and I were pretty tired so we just did the highlights on the bus and then went back to the ship. We have to get ready for dinner tonight as well, as we are heading up to the main dining room for dinner with Luc and Anna.

We finally got back to the ship and settled in, unpacked and began the gruesome task of trying to remember all we did. I think we managed pretty well.

Writing this from the next day…you’ll understand when you get to the end.

We got ready for dinner and went to the office to meet Luc and Anna. Francesca told us that this morning wasn’t too bad, the guests were alright with everything and they did get an hour of their time back as we pushed the sail away back to 7:00pm instead of the original 6:00pm. Luc and Anna were ready so we trucked it up to the dining room.

The restaurant manager jokingly told us to give our waiter a hard time…might not have been a good idea. Because I was crew before, I knew how things worked. I knew that you could usually ask for escargot even though it wasn’t on the menu as well as shrimp cocktail. So we asked if we could get some, our waiter (Dimitar) said no, it’s on the menu in the casual dining only except on special orders. So the restaurant manager walked by and asked how things were going, we told him that Dimitar refused our first request, the restaurant manager got on the phone and said yup, no problem how many do you want? Lol The joys of going to the dining room with managers. I ended up having great escargot, salad and a steak. The steak was alright but not like the Olympic at all. Dessert was horrible as well. I think the cake was a few days old, it was very dry and the pineapple was all brown. I had a bite and that was it!

We all weren’t ready to call it a night yet so we continued on to the martini bar. We had a few drinks, had a great chat with everyone and Tony came to meet us for some drinks. He’s a good guy. He’s the tour operator for New Zealand and comes onboard in our first New Zealand port and gets off in our last. After 2 martinis we were finished. We called it a night and headed off. Apparently 2 glasses of wine and 2 martinis is too much for me…was an interesting night!

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