Hi everyone,

The mighty Queenstown is in our sights. We left Wanaka behind but not before visiting puzzle world which is a building full of wacky illusions and puzzles believe it or not. There was this room that just blew your mind, where snooker balls run up the table and water runs up hill and it totally ruins your sense of balance.............mental!! There was also a room with loads of 3D faces and where ever you walked they would look at you. They also had a maze which you could do but i got impatient as normal and just used the fire exits to get out haha The drive down to Queenstown was good there was a lot of get out and take pictures stops and we also stopped off at the first Commercial bungy bridge and watched a DVD on how bungy jumping was invented which was really interesting.

Speaking of bungy's................i had mine playing in the back of my mind because it was booked in for the following day...........uh oh!! In that split second i decided to change it to this afternoon because there was no point in drawing it out if its effecting me so i decided to just get it out the way...........good job i had Lou and Hayley who paid to come along for the support. We watched a few bungy jumpers jump off the bridge and we were surprised at how quiet everybody was there was no screams or nothing.

We eventually arrived in Queenstown and it was pretty spectacular, just how i imagined it.......small one off shops with massive surrounding mountains and a huge lake. i would describe it as a typical skiing town obviously without the snow even though it seemed cold enough for it. We checked into our hostel which was Nomads and it was relatively new, our room was small but we had a balcony which over looked the mountain and the gondola it was brilliant. We quickly checked the place out and seen it had free sauna and cinema room which was pretty cool and we quickly fitted in a nap before we had to leave to go to the canyon swing. Ahhhhhhhhhhh i can't back out now.

We all went to the canyon swing and when we got there it was literally a canyon and platform to leap off. Lou and Hayley got a great view from the viewing deck as i got dragged off to get kitted out. The only thing that i wanted was to go first but no they put me last so i went through all the sweaty palms, nervous fiddling and just shear panic!!!! There's so many ways you can jump off and its only your imagination holding you back, just to give you an example of some.............. there is onewhere you sit in the chair of death and just rock back and forth until you rock that little bit too far past the no return point or there's one where you can do pull ups on the bar and as soon as you cant do anymore it's just the holding on game. However i wanted one where i had to physically and mentally jump off myself and plus that holding on one............i watched a video where one guy is holding on and he's maybe only got 20 seconds more left in him and the men in charge wind you up by saying............."actually, NO WAIT we haven't attached the clip.........wait there!" and they are trying to lean over to pull you back in and in the mean time this guy is screaming his head off thinking he's not attached on properly and when he does actually fall he thinks he's falling to his death haha i was not ready for any of that malarkey especially in my vulnerable state so I opted for a back flip.........well its actually called a gainer...i run off and jump off forward and then do a back flip.

It was my turn and i was terrified, i didn't even want to go near the edge but what he does is he makes you stand with only your heels on the edge and he says "lean out i've got ya" so i lean out to see how high i am then i wave to Hayley and Lou up on the viewing deck and just as he's bringing me back in he quickly pushes me back out making me think he let go of me and.................i hate been shocked or surprised as Hayley and Lou already know they've done it to me enough and i let off the face of horror so straight away he knew he had a screamer so he just teased me constantly like pattin me on the back but so hard that i was inches from falling off anyway i knew i had to do it!!.............. so he gave me the count ONE.............TWO........................THREE ........and i knew if i pulled this off it would look mint, i had images of tom cruise in mission impossible so i just ran for it...........but as i was about to jump he said "don't screw it up, your fan clubs up there" and as i left the platform i knew i had screwed up............i've never really done a flip before and it looked nothing like i had imagined it to look because everything in my body and in my head was saying "WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT THIS IS A CLIFF DO NOT JUMP......THIS IS THE WRONG THING TO DO!" but you had to try override it which lead to my legs being as heavy as two tonne trucks and they just had no spring in them what so ever which lead to me falling off the cliff backwards as the platform gradually got smaller and smaller as i plummeted to the bottom of the canyon............massive fail!!!!!!! Afterwards i was literally shaking i didn't end up getting the photos and video's etc it's just more money and my back flip looked more like a back flop so I just have the video Lou had done. That night was our big night out which all kiwi groups do with their bus driver upon arrival at Queenstown; a welcoming party if you will.

We started out at altitude bar which was attached to base and watched all the usual bar games before heading to world bar which had a really good live band. The first night wasn't as big as first thought but more of a warm up for the upcoming stay. We had planned to stay in Queenstown for4 nights, the next day me and Hayley got wrapped up and explored the town and came across a great little sweet shop offering free fudge samples which we took great advantage of we went through the usual questions to make them think you're interested in buying...................so what's the difference between nougat and fudge or what's your best flavour or oooo look this one's flavour of the month!!! Hayley found a great ice cream shop and did the same there but it was soo good she ended up buying!

That night we ended up meeting up with Pam and Ayley and we all went out together to world bar. The night started off so well we had loads of free drink vouchers and the music was pretty good and my moves weren't to shabby either haha then Hayley comes in "look guys iv just found Hayley (another friend) outside with no shoe's on and the bouncers won't let her in" so me and Hayley went outside and tried talking some sense into her, well Hayley did i just went along for company. Hayley our friend was outside shivering in the cold so Hayley being the motherly figure that she was since we were the oldest on the kiwi bus made it her duty to make sure she got home safe, there were tears, lost keys and rebellious youngsters but all in a nights work for Hayley haha not only did she walk her home, find her a key, dress her into her pyjamasshe also put her to bed and managed to give a stern word of warning to her friends that had left her in that state alone. Well played Hayley woodhouse!! Anyway by the time me and Hayley walked back round to the bar Louise and Pam must of been well on their way, i hadn't been back in the bar long but we were having a really good night and i was popping a few shapes on the dance floor then all of a sudden...... Oooooooooo what's this i see..............louise climb'sup onto the chair then onto the table and starts dancing......Uh oh this can't be good so i shimmy on down the dance floor.............i catch her eye...............we wave...............then she puts her arms out as if to jump............this can't be good.........even before i get a chance to turn down the offer she LEAPS mid air coming straight for me and I'm sure the strobe lights were on so all i remember is seeing Louise flying towards me.........bit by bit until i wrap my arms round her but the force she jumps at just knocks me straight off my feet hahaha everyone is looking down at us offering a hand to help us up i get up but realise i can't walk so i go outside and assess the damage only to find a lump the size of a golf ball coming out of my ankle........ i had two ankles so that was game over for me!! Louise had to carry me back to the hostel and i elevated it and Louise went back out in her pyjamas to get some ice and potato wedges cause i was hungry haha It was touch and go whether or not it was a hospital job but luckily in the morning most of the swelling went down thanks to Florence nightingale and i was just left with some bruising.

The next day i was still limping so i don't think me and Lou actually left the hostel that day and for Lou; the only thing she's seen in Queenstown is the hostel and world bar. We spent the day catching up on blogs and we tried to make an effort to sort Fiji out and we started the ball rolling. However we were always back for 6 o clock for the free evening meal which our hostel put on, it wasn't much but it was free so we had to get it. The queue was out the door and we complained about the portions every time but yet again we were back, we decided this was going to be our last night out because we had Milford sound and then we were leaving so we all decided to go out for a final farewell we got our free drink vouchers and the bar we went to had a $1000 bar tab for all nomad guests but we were only able to get one free drink out of it and i find it hard to believe that a $1000 was gone in under 10 minutes so we decided that we weren't going to give out any of our own money and called it a night Haha i mean....... pay for your drinks with your own money........don't be ridiculous!!!

Next day was excellent we got the gondola up the mountain and spent most of the day up there. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and we watched the paragliders run of f the mountain there was loads going on they had a restaurant, luging which we did in Rotorua and mountain bike tracks it was all going on! That day Lou went on a mission to sort out Fiji and in the end she saved us a 100 pound each so we went ahead and booked it all...............exciting!! we ended up booking all the expensive resorts but it will be exactlywhat we need. That night we had movie night in the hostel which was good.......Law abiding citizen.....such a good film!!

Im going to start and wrap this blog up now, il be a bit more brief...........we did Milford sound the next morning and milford sound is a fjord carved out by glaciers in the first ice age..........blah blah blah.......... apparently its meant to be tipped for the 8th wonder of the world in my opinion............what a load of tripe iv been more impressed by Hayley's farts haha look it was nice and we did think it was impressive, we had a rainy day and the money we paid kind of tainted it but thats not to say we all didn't enjoy it...............there was a huge buffet on and BINGO............thats where we make our money back......... we came prepared we had a empty bag for dry food and one for wet food and by the end we left this is what we had in our bags.......7 chicken legs, 8 spring rolls, 10 samosas, 1 pork belly sandwich, 8 fish fingers and i haven't even getting to the fruit yet.........4 apples, 2 oranges and 2 kiwi's. Not only did we steal the food we also done over the condiment basket..............2 tomato sauce's, sweet chilli and mayonnaise haha which all in all the $150 we paid for the trip...i reckon were pretty much even!! Good effort team!!!

Anyway we were leaving the next day for kaikoura and we had a 12 hour bus journey!!! So an early night and goodbye to Queenstown; we've had fun!!

Love Adam, Louise and Hayley xxx