New Zealand, a land where the grass is green and plentiful, sheep outnumber people, eating pies is an excellent idea at any time of the day, beer comes in pint glasses, toilets allow all paper to be flushed, hostels are called backpackers, laundrettes demand that you work the machines yourselves, all the pc keyboards have an @ key, English is spoken extensively and asian food is in the abundance. These were my first experiences of New Zealand, and after seven and a half months of latin america culture, the differences all came at quite a shock! After much indecision, and still in my dazed and confused state, I booked myself onto the Kiwi Experience. The Kiwi Experience, is basically a big green bus that travels around NZ and allows you to jump on or off at any point along the way. Best of all, it allows single travellers to easily meet other single travellers, and luckily for me, I met the 3 best travellers I could ever hope for: Wee Mountain Goat Emma, Percentages Dave and 'What's Ya Name Princess?' Liz. We all bonded over a desperate need to create costumes for a fancy dress party at the Mahinapua pub (more commonly known as the poo pub). After a total lack of enthusiasm for costume ideas in the $2 shop, we entered the Warehouse store, where everyone gets a bargin, or so they claim, and quickly became inspired! With much help from friendly, but not really sharing our enthusiasm, Matt, (the Warehouse member of staff), we left with an abundance of free cardboard boxes, 99 orange bin bags, a reel of brown wool , value foil and 4 very fetching viking helmets. Back at the pub, we quickly set to work on our creation. After an hour of hard graft and plentiful wine drinking, we entered the party feeling and I think looking like real warriors! A fun time was had by all, but unfortunately, despite our best and a little desperate efforts, we didn\'t win best costume or best boat! We quickly realised that if we were ever going to be the kool kids of the bus, then we needed to become Extreme! So off to ice hike the Franz Joseph glacier we went. Dressed in my best hiking gear, complete with ice boots and specially attached claws (vital to grip the ice) I carefully followed the lead of our guide Kieran as he hacked out new routes through the ice. The ice was so beautiful, amazing towering shapes and vibrant shades of blues surrounding dramatic drops and icy pools. I loved the glacier experience so much that I even decided to take a quick dip in the icy pools with the rest of my group and climb the long route down to base with boots full of icy water - Freezing! Climbing on the glacier was amazing and definately one of the highlights my NZ adventure. Swimming in pools of icywater was a good step in the EXTREME direction, but the next stop was Queenstown: the home of the bungy. Emma was first to take up the challenge, eagerly winning a free Nevis bungy jump in a pub clothes stripping and swopping competition - classy! Dave was next, keenly taking on the K bridge bungy - the site of the first comercial bungy jump. Watching Dave jump, I felt an sudden pang of jealousy. Not wanting to be left out of the experience I pleaded, begged and maybe a little bullied Liz into doing a tandem jump at the K bridge. As soon as she agreed I changed my mind! If I was going to jump it had to be the biggest and the best - the Nevis it was - all 134m of it. The Nevis is definately the absolute scariest thing I have ever experienced. It will be no suprise to learn that I was the lightest jumper, which in bungy terms means I have the misfortune to jump last. Suspended over the massive canyon in a tiny glass floor cable car (ohh yes they don't miss a fear trick!) I watched everyone else jump. The long long wait only hightened the level of suspense and fear that I was feeling and when I finally came to my turn I was terrified. As I shuffled to the edge of the platform I can remember thinking that I have no choice but to jump first time. Firstly, any hesitation would only worsen the experience; and secondly, everyone else had jumped like professionals on the count of one and rather vainly, I did not want to be known as the lame dithering bungy jumper of the group! So on the count of one I jumped. As I freefell for approx 8 seconds, my brain did indeed tell me that I was going to die. Thankfully the brain, on this rare occasion(!), was wrong. It was so thrilling to feel the first bounce and I was so excited that my first words on coming back up to the platform were ' I want to jump it again'! I didn't tho'. For me, once was definately enough to handle in one day. Liz, Dave and Emma all jumped brilliantly too and we did indeed gain the kudos of the kool kids of the bus. Team Extreme was born! Our extreme adventures contined over lake Taupo in the north island were Liz, Dave and I all skydived from 12000ft before breakfast. I really loved the skydive and compared to the bungy it was certainly a lot less scary and a lot more enjoyable. Of course there is the initial fear as you are pushed out of the plane(yep you don't really have any choice but to leave the plane when your skydiving partner decides too. Basically once you are in the plane, you are going to skydive, there's no going back), but the pressure of falling is so great that you don't actually feel like you are falling. The whole experience is pretty peaceful and obviously the views are amazing. It was an awesome experience and one I'd love to do again and again and again. NZ is brilliant because every activity is surrounded by NZ's beautiful geography, whether it be lakes, mountains or volcanoes. For example I spent a whole day sea kayaking in the abel tasmin national park, which for me, was the most beautiful part of NZ, speed boating through Westport under an amazing full rainbow, lazing on a boat in the sunshine through the picturesque Milford Sound and racing along the 90mile beach highway with ocean and beach for as far as the eye could see. In short, my six weeks in NZ have all but one of the vital ingredients for a bumper Blue Peter Omnibus: costume making, extreme activities (skydiving particularly reminds me of the show), baking (yep I didn't only live on toasties and pies) and exploring NZ's beautiful geography. The only NZ blot on my Blue Peter picture is the distinct lack of Christmas decorations. I just hope its not too late to tune in and learn to make the Blue Peter Christmas staple: the advent calendar! Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and all the Americans reading this a fabulous Thanksgiving. Sweet as bro! Lindsxxx