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Published: August 25th 2006
Cup of tea anyone?
Teapot of alcahol=messy night, sweet.Onwards…..
From the Fox Glacier we set off for Wanaka. We were a day late in doing this as the road to Wanaka was hit by a few rock falls and landslides so we had to wait a night before the road was open, that was cool as we didn’t fancy being hit by any rocks…obviously. The journey down to Wanaka and the Queenstown area was full of great little places to stop as is everywhere in this country. We pulled up at the blue pools which was a nice little walk to some…yep you guessed blue pools but they weren’t actually blue….something about too much rainfall or something! We also stopped at thunder creek falls to admire yet another waterfall, so many of them….you see dozens literally just off the side of the road.
Wanaka had a wintry feel about it (probably because it was the winter…!), probably due to all the snowboarders and skiers that were about, the place was buzzing with snow lovers. There were loads of cool, fashionable and pretty young things around carrying their snowboards and some were wearing what can only be described as brightly coloured pyjamas. Wanaka is a good base for
Me at puzzleworld!
Me and a globe.....i did enjoy touching it! some of the slopes nearby and so it was packed when we were there. It’s a very pretty little town sited on the lake of the same name and like its older brother Queenstown there are loads of adrenalin activities you can do. We only stayed here one night, I have no idea why-it was a great little place, but if we were skiing then this would have been an obvious choice for base. I did really want to go skiing because I haven’t been for a few years but it wasn’t in our budget to go, too expensive, anyway I would have embarrassed myself by falling down the slopes rather than elegantly skiing down. We had booked to do a jet boat ride in the morning but there wasn’t enough people to do it and it was raining so we gave that a miss, we figured we would just do it in Queenstown where it’s more expensive but there are loads more company’s that operate trips so hopefully more chance of doing it. We went to Puzzle World instead which was great fun, got lost in the maze there but good fun! Loads of random puzzling things to keep
Me and lake Matheson
Unfortunately the weather was poo and so you can't see Mt Cook or any other mountains in the background! us entertained for an hour or so.
Queenstown was a place that had been talked about by nearly every person we had met in the USA and Fiji….it had a lot to live up to. It is known as the adventure and adrenalin capital of New Zealand and probably the world, the amount of stuff you can do here is staggering. You can throw yourself off numerous high structures, jet boat through a canyon, skydive, paraglide, luge……the list goes on. We wanted to see what the fuss was about. We had a couple of nights in a hostel booked as we fancied mixing with some fellow travellers again after so long in the camper and with the intention of meeting people to go out on the town with! We had a wicked time at the hostel and in Queenstown, it was a great place. We met an American girl called Monique almost as soon as we had checked in, and we met her friend Ryan shortly afterwards who then showed us around a few bars and clubs in town. Got quite drunk that night even though I really didn’t want to as I had a bungy jump booked in
Superwoman!
I think everyone does this pose, looks good though! for the following morning! Monique and I both wanted to do it so we booked ourselves onto a jump at the Kawerau Bridge which was the worlds first commercial jump site set up by the bungy maestro A. J. Hackett. I have wanted to do a bungy jump ever since I knew I was going travelling and so was really excited about doing it. We also booked a jet boat ride on the Kawerau Jet as it was the cheapest of the jet boat options, the Shotover Jet looks by far the best but was only half an hour long and cost $99! It looks really good as it is the only boat that is allowed to operate on the section of the Shotover that runs through the canyon, anyway we were looking forwards to our ride as we had been told by people it was good.
Slightly groggy and hungover on a day when your due to jump off a bridge with only an elastic band attached to your legs isn’t the best idea but it happened. I drove us all (Me, Fran, Monique and Ryan) down to the jump site which was a few k’s out of
Me and Monique
No idea why im staring like that, i look shocked for some reason town and I was pooing myself. So nervous it was silly, I kept trying to keep calm but the results of the night before mixed with a nervous excitement made for a horrendous combination inside my stomach. Got checked in, got weighed and made our way outside to the platform where you jump from, quite real now…very real!! Got harnessed up and got told that because I wanted to get dunked in the water to put my arms out and tuck my head on to my chin so that I don’t get black eyes…great…! Had to wait ages before I jumped, I only had a t-shirt on and was freezing…..had a little chat with a teacher who used to live in Bournemouth which was a bit surreal and then it was my turn! Watched Mon jump off and then it was me….I can’t really describe the rush you get….awesome feeling, left my stomach at the top though! Bouncing around upside down waiting for the men in the boat to get me down was the worst bit, seriously! So pleased to have done it though, I didn’t get dunked in the water though which was annoying but still awesome, 142ft of
brown pants. Got a DVD of my jump and some photos as well which was funny to watch, I look like a bit silly but at least I get to relive it again and again.
The same afternoon we did jet boating which was amazing. They go so fast and so close to anything that might harm you, like huge poles sticking out of the water…and you get wet. The best bit however was when they do 360o spins and our guy did loads of them, sweet. He stopped a couple of times to tell us a bit about the scenery around us, Queenstown is gorgeous and is flanked by lots of mountains and beautiful countryside. Apparently they used a mountain range called the Remarkable’s as a backdrop for some Lord of the Geek‘s…sorry Ring’s scenes (I only mock as I haven’t seen them…!) which is also a good ski field…anyway the jet boat ride was so so so so so cold but good fun also. That evening was spent out on the town again but there were loads more people out (it was a Friday) and more alcohol was consumed than the night before….some of it out of
The Kawarau Bridge which i jumped off!
Looks so far down when your up there, believe me! Mon, you know what that feels like! teapots which was weird but tasty. Mon and Ryan were fantastic company and we had a great time, didn’t get in till 6ish (medal) and had to check out by ten the next day, that was not nice. Feeling rough the next day we didn’t do much and had a little kip in our camper as even though we had booked another night at the hostel we weren’t allowed to check in yet. All we did today was go to the cinema, we wanted to see POC 2 but that was sold out so we saw Final Destination 3 which was ok, nice and gory.
We did the luge today, so much fun! You get a gondola up to the top of this hill which overlooks Queenstown and then hurtle down a concrete luge run on tiny little carts trying not to crash! You get great views of Queenstown from the top as well. If I ever get rich enough to have a house with lots of land attached, including a big hill, I want a luge circuit built, great fun. One other incident that made me laugh was Fran not knowing how to get onto the chairlift, it
Mission completed!
Looking smug after our jump! Or maybe just relieved! nearly knocked her over as she was facing the wrong way, so funny! Anyway, I’m not that mean and she didn’t get hurt so its all good. Enjoyed our time in Queenstown and Wanaka….be It a bit brief. Fantastic nights out, saw a few people we had met along the way in other various places and met Mon and Ryan of course which was good. Overall, a good time was had, next stop is Milford Sound.
Happy birthday to Stev….not sure when your birthday is exactly but its around this time I think and Witard…yours is soon as well isn’t it dude? Anyway, happy 24th to you both! Well done to my sis for passing her first year exams and to my brother for his A level results! Three B’s! So much better than me!
Take care everyone
Peace and love
Thommo
P.S. I’ve been really slack and this blog has been really late in coming so I apologise and I will get my bum in gear and get some more done.
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Howesy
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big head
fuck me - he has a bigger head than me! I want to meet him so he makes mine look small! Seriously though mate - the bungy sounded awesome - i'll write soon.