Milford Sound, no petrol and BUNGY JUMPING!!!

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Met up with Tom from Dougie's (Oz) and his 'friend' (ahem!) Kat from Paisley, Scotland who arrived in Queenstown on Tuesday nite. We decided to venture off to Milford Sound and Te Anau - a good drive from Queenstown. So Gordy, Emma, Emily, Tom and Kat set off on Thursday morning. Surprisingly enough, our 9 seater van was a wee bit squashed with all of us on board plus our massive backpacks and food/drink supply for 2 days!! Still, it was good to have 3 Weegies in the car!
Drove to Te Anau - about 3 hours west of Queenstown. The scenery on the way was beautiful - but then that's hardly surprising for NZ! We had a nice lunch by the lake in Te Anau and then went for a good walk around it in the afternoon. After that we drove another 2 hours to Milford, passing thru avalanche areas and a huge tunnel through a mountain with icicles hanging off the ceiling - so cool! Unbeknown to all of us except the driver (GORDY!), we were fast running out of petrol and the warning light had been on for a good while before we reached Milford. Gordy presumed we would get a garage in Milford, Tom presumed we had enough fuel in the car, Emily thought there was a garage in Milford as well, and Emma didn't have any thoughts on the matter!
Shit!
So there we are in Milford, with no garage for 120 km UPHILL and enough fuel to drive, erm, nowhere! Ah well, no point worrying about it - everything looks better in the morning! Milford really cold and frosty, and we settled down and had some food and drinks and a game of cards. A nosy kea (dumb NZ bird) was patrolling the area outside our room for ages and was trying to escape the cold and come in - NO CHANCE!! It looked like an owl with a huge beak - WRONG!
By 11pm the generator shut down and with no warning we were plunged into darkness for the nite. Nothing to do except sleep then!
Next morning we went for a cruise on the Milford Sound (which is actually a Fiord but hey!) and it was absolutely beautiful with mountains coming out the sea, waterfalls cascading down the slopes and picture-perfect mirror reflections in the water. Free tea and coffee too - bonus!

Back on dry land we were elated to discover an emergency petrol pump in the village. Our cheers were short-lived tho - the pump had recently been vandalised!!! So with a full car load and hardly a drop of fuel we had to drive all the way back up the mountain and thru the tunnel to the only other emergency fuel pump. Pretty scary and even listening to Billy Connelly didn't help calm the nerves much! However Emma's expert driving and free-wheeling down any available slope managed to get us there okay. In fact - we had discovered the last hand-pumped petrol pump in Kiwi-land and Emma pumped our fuel into the car. Phew!!!

On the way back to Queenstown we discussed bungy jumping the next day and had a wee laugh at Gordon who had it all booked up. Emily decided she wanted to do it and talked a not-up-for-it Tom into agreeing. However the next morning Emily decided she definately didn't want to jump whilst Tom knew it was now or never!

We drove to the Kawarau bridge site 20 mins out of Queenstown - the home of the world's first commercial bungy standing at a lovely height of 43m! All the way there Emily took great glee in playing suitable songs on her iPod - Chemical Bros - the big jump. Mylo - drop the pressure, Razorlight - fall fall fall; and many others. Resisted the urge to put David Gray's dead in the water on hee hee :-) Tom was visibly unimpressed but i think he was just squirming!!

Got to the bungy site and watched a multitude of crazy Japanese people jump. Tom had his turn and executed a lovely dive and then a shaky and nervous lip-chewing Gordy did an equally impresive jump. Emily snuck off and put her trainers on and then booked the jump. More annoyed about the weight on the scales than the cost involved - tho it was bloody expensive for a 2 second activity!

Emily's jump went smoothly and the people in the boat who pull you down afterwards said it was very graceful. Big Yippy!!

After the excitement, Emily decided she had to do the Ledge Sky Swing at nite. Big mistake! Never screamed so much ever!!!

Only one thing left to do and that was to get suitably and horribly drunk that night. Had a toast to all things bungy and all things Gordy (for his last nite) with some yummy Lindaer Montana sparkiling, and then hit the town big styleee! Quuenstown you rock!!

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