As this blog is mainly about Queenstown and goes on for a bit, I will skip a few places from our journey there. Basically, we went to: Arthurs Pass; Geraldine, Lake Tekapo, Akaroa and finally Dunedin. Dunedin rained a lot, but we went to the Cadburys factory and the Speights brewery for tours which were fun. We put the photos up in there own section with proper explanations if you are interested.

After 3 days in Dunedin, we headed off to Queenstown, which I was really looking forward to. After arriving in Queenstown, I could soon see why people raved about the town wherever we had been in NZ.Queenstown is now one of my favourite places in NZ. It's a smallish town, sat on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and was settled during the gold rush on the nearby Shotover river. There is still a gold rush of sorts here, but its Snow and adrenaline that brings the crowds now. We had booked ourselves on a skiing holiday while down here and got a great deal through Ski Express (www.skiexpress.co.nz ) With our package, we got 3 days ski pass to both of the resorts in Queenstown, unlimited group lessons, clothing and equipment hire, AND our accommodation.I decided to take advantage of the lessons and learn to snowboard, whereas Emma decided to improve on her skiing as she was already reasonably good.

We chose to ski at The Remarkables first, and they haven't named it wrong it's a great resort, although to get to it, it's a 45 min drive from Queenstown up the mountain on a fairly crappy dirt road. It's a bit worrying when you first go up it, and not much more reassuring as you come down. With the lessons I had, I had an absolute blast for the full 3 days. I spent the first day sat on my arse for most of it, but by the end I was feeling pretty good on my board and progressed well. The end of the 2nd day was the worst as I simply couldn't get my turns right (for anyone who has boarded, every time I turned from heels to toe, I ended up flat on my back!)It didn't help that our 2nd day was on Coronet Peak, which is better for the better skiers and boarders, but not so good for learners. Especially as it was quite icy the day we were there. Luckily for me, we went back to the Remarkables and I had a better instructor who helped me sort it out. Emma was also having fun working on her parallel turns and getting to see what the ski resorts looked like beyond the learner slope. We managed to share a few runs together on the final day, but it was quite slow progress for me as my regular falls amused her all the way down.

Queenstown is also the adrenaline capital of NZ, and the home of the original Bungy jump. The world's first commercial bungy jump was set up in Queenstown by AJ Hackett and is still running to this day. I had planned to do the jump while in NZ and decided to get the Thrillogy package. This was 3 jumps, the Kawarau bridge - the worlds first and 43m High; The Ledge - a 47m jump, but this is set 400m up a mountain so the views are amazing, you can also jump at night. And finally, the Nevis - a 143m monster jump from a cable car suspended over a canyon. I started with the bridge and despite all my bravado beforehand, I was still pretty nervous. Emma came along for this one, and was able to watch from the sidelines.As I had to fit all 3 jumps in one day, I had an early start for the bungy at the bridge so it was reasonably quiet.Its hard to describe what you feel when you do something like this, the nerves go a little as you get to the jump site and start to get ready, while you are doing something your brain isn't as worried as it was 5 minutes ago.You can chat and have a laugh with the guys operating the equipment without any worries. (Although it's slightly worrying that the bungy cord is simply attached to a towel that is then strapped to your ankles; I was hoping for something a little more hi-tech!) However, as soon as you stand up, and start to shuffle out to the edge, it all gets a bit real. At this point I was fairly worried; not about the jump so much, but about what I would do next. My biggest fear wasn't falling; it was spazzing out near the edge and not doing it.. The whole process is designed to get you to jump as quickly as possible, as soon as you stand up they steer you towards the edge and are quickly giving you the countdown. They say if you don't jump within 30 seconds, that you wont jump at all - It took me about 28 seconds, before I finally launched myself forward, eyes closed, into the abyss below………..And then, its an absolutely awesome feeling once you jump. It's so fast, that's the first thing that you think, then you see the river coming towards you and at that point I bottled it a little, and covered my head rather than stretch for the water. I miss touching the water by about an inch; it looks really silly on the video. The other thing that looks really silly on my video is my belly. No-one thought to tell me to tick my t-shirt into my jeans, so naturally as I am bobbing up and down at the end of a giant rubber band. The t-shirt and jumper had fallen around my head exposing me to the poor souls watching.

The Nevis, was next up and I now felt more confident of the jump ahead of me. Its hard to think of how tall 143m is when you see it written down, but when you get to the jump site, you realize that 143m is a long, long, long way down! (It's taller than the London Eye, Big Ben, and the spike in Dublin; so it's very big!) As I said, the jump doesn't take place from a platform like the other jumps; you have to jump out of a cable car that is permanently positioned over a canyon outside of Queenstown.To make things worse, to get to the cable car, you first have to get in a rickety little basket thing that takes you across to the cable car! That's quite an intense ride in its own right. The cable car itself is small, we had 20 people in our group and had about 15 in the car at the most while people were jumping and that was a tight fit. One whole side of the car is caged off and open to the air for the jumper, everyone else just stands around and waits and tried not to stare through the glass panels in the floor which show the drop and the jumper as he goes down. Luckily (?) for me, the jumpers are decided in weight order, heaviest first - so up I stepped, first one to jump. To get ready for this jump, you are sat in a chair with what appear to be birthing stirrups for your legs.You are then strapped into a more secure looking harness than the towels, and then the chair swivels round and you walk towards the edge.If anyone gets to see the video of my jump, it's at this point you can see me stop and think what the f*ck am I doing up here! Luckily for me, the helper bloke said, don't think about it, just do it; and bizarrely enough, that little bit of pop psychology that could have been written on a matchbox was enough to make me walk to the edge and jump!This jump was a different experience, it went for much longer and you get a chance to embrace the speed a little. The jerk at the bottom is harder and the force that throws you back in the air means that you get periods of weightlessness on each bounce. It's a phenomenal, but really stressful way to enjoy yourself. When I was hauled back into the cable car, the adrenaline meant that my legs didn't stop shaking for 10 minutes; you could see everyone else having a similar reaction but not caring as we all had a huge smile on our faces!

The last jump was The Ledge, this is often overlooked because of its more illustrious brothers but it offers a very different jump experience. As the jump is 400m up in the mountains above Queenstown, the view is fantastic and you can also jump at night. The other thing is that you are not tied at your feet, you are strapped by your waist and on this jump, and you simply run off the edge and leap out like you are at the swimming pool or a pier.I really cocked this jump up as I hadn't thought what I was going to do with my arms, so as I jumped I wrapped them round myself, and as Emma said, looked like a flying spud - not a good look. Besides throwing yourself off things, or down mountains or any other silly stuff like that, there is plenty more to do in Queenstown. At the top of the mountain that I had my ledge jump, there is a viewing point. This has a large restaurant, café, viewing deck over Queens town and a luge track. The luge is like a basic go cart that you race downhill on. Its such a blast and you get really fast as you fly around corners trying to avoid lots of small children who can't drive and really shouldn't get in your way! The views from up here are stunning, and the gondola ride up is quite enjoyable as well.With all this activity and a town full of young people, the nightlife in Queenstown is second to none. There are bars to suit everyone's taste. We tried a few of them, including the famous World Bar where you can have your cocktails served in a teapot. A bizarre but enjoyable way to get nicely trollied. And if you need something to soak up all the alcohol, they even have there own burger restaurant called Fergburger. These are some of the best burgers I have ever tried, they are HUGE and there are loads of different options - although most come with beetroot which is a bizarre aussie/kiwi habit! We spent about 6 days in Queenstown and could happily have spent longer. If there is a downside, it's that it's quite an expensive town. There is only 1 supermarket if you are doing your own food and with all the different activities to do, it's quite easy to get carried away and spend a lot of money. Despite this, I would happily recommend it to anyone - particularly if you like ski-ing or boarding.