Queenstown's Frankton Airport must be one of the most picturesque airports in the world. Only smaller commercial planes can fly into it because it is nestled between beautiful mountains, lakes and rivers. When the plane was landing it felt as though the wings were only inches away from those very same mountains. Its apt that the flight into Queenstown is so exhilarating because Queenstown is, of course, the adrenalin sport capital of the world, with bungee jumping (and all kinds of variations), white water rafting, jet boating, canyoning, flying, gliding and sky diving all on offer. We opted for the white water rafting as Gemma was dead set against bungee jumping and Craig had had such a great time rafting in Zambia. We were taken to the Shotover River for our rafting expedition which is much calmer and narrower than the Zambezi River. We had fun on the 2 hours of rafting but we only tackled one class 4 rapid and a handful of class 3 rapids which made for a pretty dull trip. The canyon and the scenery is spectacular, but overall the lack of thrills and spills (no-one even fell out of our raft!) meant that we both felt it was a little lame. We (Craig in particular) also had our first experience of the New Zealand sandfly. Sandflies apparently love the taste of Craig's blood incessantly biting his hands causing huge lumps to erupt.

For our 19 day stay in New Zealand we had hired our very own campervan, a Jucy El Cheapo, which turned out to be a converted Toyota Hiace with exceedingly high mileage. It would be our mode of transportation, our kitchen, our bedroom and lounge for the next 3 weeks. We both felt quite excited and delighted about not having to sleep in dorms and regaining some independence when travelling. It may seem a strange thing for us to say but independent travelling means being beholden to train and bus timetables and placing reliance on transport operators and local travel agents. We could now travel where we wanted, when we wanted.

Queenstown itself is an incredibly picturesque town, lying between the soaring heights of the Remarkables and the coves of Lake Wakatipu, it is beautifully framed. There are plenty of bars, restaurants and activities and Craig's first reaction was that it was like Cumbria's Lake District on super strength steroids.

We passed a very pleasant second day in Queenstown taking a walking tour around part of lake Wakatipu and Queenstown Gardens before descending into the underwater observatory to see the fattest trout ever and diving ducks. We then took a quick walk around the streets and shops of Queenstown (lots of souvenir shops, outdoor shops and places to book activities like rafting) before taking the Skyline gondola up Bob's Peak to get some spectacular views of Queenstown and the surrounding countryside and then taking a luge down.

Our 3 days in Queenstown passed so quickly and we both wanted to spend more time in the fantastic town. We hadn't even scratched the surface during out time there and so much more was on offer that we would have liked to have done, including maybe some partying. Out itinerary for New Zealand is packed so straight after our rafting trip we were in the campervan heading south to Fiordland.