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Published: October 23rd 2007
Puzzle world
This leaning tower is Huge, but because of where the stand is it makes it look small. It's an example of the optical illusions used in Lord of the RingsWe left Franz Josef today, heading for Wanaka. Now this is quite a long drive and normally en route we would stop at various spots for pictures, including Fox Glacier and views of Mount Cook, but the weather was still pretty shocking, so it was pretty much a straight run to Wanaka, arriving early afternoon.
This is a really sweet town, again reminded me of a ski resort, and surprisingly when we got here it was glorious sunshine. We had quite a chilled out afternoon here, just wandered around the village and shops. If I had the time, it would be nice to spend a couple of days here and it is also the gateway to some ski resorts, so who knows maybe I’ll venture back one day.
The following day on the way out of Wanaka we stopped at PuzzleWorld. Some guys from the bus had gone sky diving, so we killed some time here. It had different optical illusions, puzzles and a big maze, which was good fun. We then picked up the rest of the bus, and it was off to Queenstown, the party capital of New Zealand. On the way we stopped at the world
Famous AJ Hackett Bungy site, where they explained that bungy originated from Vanuatu, in the Pacific, where it was an annual ritual. Whilst there if you were crazy enough you could jump off the suspension bridge over the Kawarau River. This was the first commercial operated bungy site in the world. Out of our little group, Sam was the only one who did. I felt sick just watching, but he loved it that much that he booked to do the other two in Queenstown. The Kawarau River Bungy is 43 metres. Then there is The Ledge, where the bungy is attached to your waist, so you can run and somersault if you want and finally The Nevis, which is a whopping 134 metres. Totally crazy!
We arrived in Queenstown late afternoon and all checked into the hostel. Then after Sam had thrown himself off The Ledge, his second Bungy of the day, we all went to dinner at the legendary Ferg Burger. Now anyone that has been to Queenstown will know about Ferg Burgers. They have to be the best burgers in the world. You can have anything from a Plain Burger to a Big Al, which basically a
½ burger which has everything on it, egg, bacon, salad etc. Check out the picture of Sam eating it, its huge.
Later on that night everyone met in the bar for a bit of a final gathering as this is where the bus tends to split up. People spend varying amounts of time in Queenstown. Sam, Becky, Stu, Sean & I had already decided we were staying for at least 6 nights, to fit everything in that we wanted to do, but some on the bus were only staying for a couple of nights. It was a great night and we also met up with people that were on our bus in the North Island that we left behind on Blenheim when we did our wine tour.
The next day I just chilled out and explored Queenstown. Sam had gone to do his third and final Bungy and Becky had won a Canyon Swing for her outfit at the Poo Party, which involves freefalling about 60m then swinging 100m in the air. A few of the other girls from the bus decided to do it too. Not my idea of fun, don’t like heights. When they came back
Night out in Queenstown
Me, Sam, Natalie & Mieka it turned out that they all got a jump for free as they did it topless!!! We all went to bed fairly early today as Sam, Sean, Becky and I had booked 3 days of snowboarding starting tomorrow.
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