Brrrrruuuuup.
Well, if this isnt the best blog so far then I’ll be dammed.
So the standard stunning scenery as we coached it from Dunedin to Queenstown. Which by the way is famous for being adrenalin capital of the WORLD. We’ve been staying at Lakefront YHA, which has got to be the best hostel I’ve satyed it, the views from the window are pretty sweet.
So we started job hunting on the Friday, no success in job agency 1 or 2, but 3rd time lucky they offered us a job in a call centre starting on the Monday. Happy Days……(or so we thought).
To celebrate we had a ‘Fergburger’, famous among all travellers, as the best burger bar in the world! Then we shot up the Gondola/Cable Car to get some of the most amazing views so far. While we were up there we had a go on the ‘Luge’, basically like go carting but down the hill an you have to get a ski lift back up. I promise I wasn’t competitive about it at all, but Lewis Hamilton would have been proud of me overtaking C on race one. C claimed “cause im taller it makes me slower”. Ha, yea right.
Once we’d finished we just chilled out up there for a bit before coming back down into town and booking up the “AWESOME FOURSOME”. Just so you know the Awesome Foursome, isn’t Me, Britney Spears, Rhianna and Cheryl Cole! O no. This is the following adrenalin filled activities, Helicopter ride (or ‘Chopper ride’ sounds crazier) Whitewater Rafting, Jet Boat ride and ummmm what was the 4th…….uhhhh….. o yea, the 3rd highest bungy in the world, the highest in NZ, 134m Nevis Bungy!
So here’s C with Part I and Part II of the awesome foursome….
We got up at about 6.30am as we had to meet at 7.30, and it actually wasn’t so bad because we got to see the sunrise over the ‘Remarkables’ mountain range which was sweet, we werent sure which activity we would be doing first, but soon found out it would be the helicopter ride up to the start of the white water rafting, we first had to get into our wetsuits and safety gear so we could then get straight into the rafting at the top of the river. The chopper then came in and picked us up, JB managed to score himself a front seat whilst I made sure I got a window seat in the back! It was amazing, we’d both never taken off vertically before so that was weird but good, and then the way the pilot just casually steered through the canyon’s as we made our way upstream was brilliant, awsome views and an awsome experience! So we got to the starting point of the rafting and had our safety briefings and then got split off into 6’s and assigned to a rafting instructor, we were lucky and got a American named Tom who looked suspeciously like George Michael, but he was a good instructor! We set off down the river and got to learn all of the skills we would need, such as front paddle, back paddle and possibly most improtantly…hold on!! As we continued further down the river towards the first rapid, Tom was explaining about what grade of rapids we would be taking on today, he said the roughtest in the world was a grade 6, and that would be like rafgting under Niagra Falls, then working backwards down to grade 1 which is like bath water! At that point we were on a calm bit of the river and he said it was about a 1.2! Luckily for us though he said we would be encountering some good rapids, up to a grade 4 so that was good news! We took on the first couple of rapids with ease and then he started telling us about a set of 6 rapids in close succsession that we would be entering soon, they have names for each onethe first was ‘jaws’, the second was ‘the sequel’ (like the first but just not as good!!), and others included ‘pinball’, ‘O s***’, and ‘red rocks’. This set of rapids was really good and we were one of the first boats through it, it was quality, we got to watch the others come through after us, one group were just entering the last set of rapids, starting all in the boat, I looked away for maybe 2 seconds and when I looked back the only person in the boat was the instructor, waving his paddle in the air in triumph!!! The group managed to jump on board some of the other boats until their boat got to them so they were all ok, was well funny though, especially as the water was super freezing!!! We had the chance for a swim earlier and we both accpeted and just jumped in, it felt like getting in the sea in England in the middle of December!! So that was only a very short swim!! On the way down Tom was giving us some information about the river which was quite intresting, it was one of the most scenic rivers to raft in the world, was the 2nd best river for being able to find gold in as back in the early 1900’s there had been a massive gold rush and they actually only stopped mining for gold in 1996, and he also told us we were about to raft through the longest raftable tunnel in the world at over 160m, followed by one of the wettest rapids we would have faced that day, true to his word, it was a very long tunnel, follwed by a very wet rapid in which we went down a massive hill at close to a 90 degree angle, I nearly went over board but luckily had my feet wedged in well! So that was the end of the rafting, we had rafted 16km down the Shotover river, it was a great experience and hopefully we can do it again somewhere along our travels!!
Back to Barn-dog for the next 2……..
White water rafting was ledge and ‘Chopper ride’ was swwwwweet. Good job C, and the instructor Tom was defo a ringer for George Michael, guess ‘you gotta have Faith’ though. (ha great gag)
Anyway next up the jet boat, imagine paddling your way down 16km of the Shot over river, then hopping into a red jet boat that boasts 500bhp and absolutely ripping it down there, felt strange. But fast, very very fast. Was cool, unfortunatley C had to sit next to the old lady who was convinced everytime the driver who by the way was class, headed for the rocks was going to crash into them, she would let out a scream that made me wana turn round n chin her. Ha.
With 3 down there was only 1 left, the top dog. Nevis Bungy, we got some grub then headed out on the coach to the site. Like I said, 3rd highest in the world. Highest in NZ and the 134m freefall takes you 10m away from the river/rocks below and only takes 8 seconds, your hitting 130kmph in just over 2seconds. Ha Sweet!
C being the heaviest was up first, by this point on a scale of 1-10 10 being the most scared I’ve ever been, I was only around a 5 or 6. He was getting strapped up round the feet, an I was taking pics, enjoying the fear I could see him experienceing. Then I watched him jump, was awesome, he did a ‘solid jump’ straight out. Legend. Then the nerves cracked up a notch maybe a 7 or an 8, because I realised that it was actually my go in a few turns. Then I had the call, cue 9 on the scale of nerves. Sat down got the tiny brief, got strapped to the cord. And 10 the most scared I have ever been without doubt. But strangely it didn’t last long, when I was told to walk over to the edge I calmed down, probably cause I realised that it was time to do it. Got a 3,2,1 from the bungy man and then the biggest jump I could muster.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
It was the sweetest feeling, all 8 seconds (even though it lasted the rest of the day too). Would defo do it again, I prefered it to skydiving for sure, what a feeling. Make sure you check out the videos!!

So that night after a monster of a day, we hit the pub to watch 3 games of Super 14’s,whilst knocking back around 5 or 6 pitchers each…..what?….. it was a long day. But maybe the best was yet to come for me. We then went to the sports bar upstairs, C fell asleep. I happened to stay up for a little certain match that was on TV, ummm don’t know if you saw it. Man u vrs Liverpool the mighty reds won 4-1 if you didn’t know. 4-1 yep 4-1, that’s 4 to liverpool and 1 to the mancs. HA! What a day! Could it get even better. Of course it could there were 3 man utd fans in the pub, at least they were at the start of the game! C woke up I think when Torres scored so he enjoyed BOUNCING along to the rest of the game. O my days what a game. I hear Torres needed Painkillers to get through the game. Well Vidic and Ferdinand will need them to get over it. BOUNCE NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA.
Top Day.
Over to C-dog.
So onto the next day……WRITE OFF!! Second Sunday in a row that was written off by the previous night, havent done that ina while!!! But a lot of recovering was done, mainly spent in bed or just chilling out! The following day we had work…yes that’s right we had work…luckily for us we didn’t start until 3pm so we got a good solid lie in and then some good grub donw us before heading off to the office! We had our intro about what we would be doing and how to approach it, basically ring people in Brisbane, piss them off, waste their time, make their tea go cold is how I would describe it, and occasionally get someone to actually listen to you….but even less occassionaly in fact only once for me and twice for Jacko in the 3 days, get a sale and actually get them to agree to go to the seminar on investment (excuse my french) S**T!!! As you can tell….a typical telemarketing job, paid well, good bonus’, but a just a crap job, making around 60 calls an hour…to then get rejected 59.999999 of them..Ridiculous! So after starting on the Monday, and working 7 hours shifts on the Tuesday and Wednesday we quit on the Thursday! Haha! We kind of knew we wouldn’t last long when everyday on the way to work one of us would sing the line of a song that starts “Work sucks, I no”! Funny times, and to be fair their probably was a couple of people that made me laugh by their funny rejections!!! Not enough to stay though! Still the following day after we told them we had quit we thought we would go for a Ferg Burger to celebrate!! And again it didn’t dissappoint!
When we got back to the hostel on the Wednesday night their had been a poster put up about a couple that needed some help moving house on the Friday, $100 for about 4/5 hours work, sorted we gave them a text and said we would help out. So Tracy picked us up on the Friday morning around 10ish, and we went back to their house to help pack the items onto the removal van and their trailor, as we got their we couldn’t understand why they were moving!!! They had a beautiful view over the lake and also a nice house! After loading pretty much everything on we set off for their new house, they were actually swapping houses so the other family were doing exactly the same, they were still packing up and moving out as we were helping them move in! As we pulled up to the new house we could see why the had moved, it was bigger, still had a really nice view and also had a swimming pool on the decking area!!! So we set about unloading the furniture and stuff, we finished about 3 ish and then had a ‘couple’ of beers with Nick and Tracy and also had another Ferg burger courtesy of them, at about 10pm after the Hurricanes v Bulls Super 14’s match had finished and the crate of Speight’s was gone they gave us a lift back to the hostel, so all in all a good day, and we got top meet some really nice people, this was the type of work we could manage!!!
So its time for yet another re-think, we think we will move on as work isn’t easy to come by, were heading to Te Anau tomorrow and will hopefully see some Millford sound and then we’ll decide what to do from their!!!

Is the message board broken??? Doesn’t seem to be showing all the messages your leaving!!!???
Anyway…Take it easy, we sure are!
Peace!!!
C and Barnes
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