We woke up on Wednesday morning at about 6.30am bursting for the loo arrr! And braved the cold to go to the loo's. Then went back to bed till 8 for a lie in. We headed for breakie in the kitchen and a woman got chatting to us about what she'd done out here. Everyone is so friendly out here everyone just keeps chatting to us! We arrived in Queenstown a couple hours later after driving through a few small towns, one of which we got to taste some Honey mmmmmm. We parked up and had a walk through the nice town trying to decide what to do. We popped in and out of travel agents trying to find the best price for activities then headed to a campsite called 'Q' to review it. We finally came to the conclusion of what to do and headed back into town. As we were walking out the campsite a guy in a 4x4 pulled up and asked if we wanted a lift into town, we jumped in and thanked him. He explained he wasn't just some mad man, that he worked at the campsite, I explained to him that it didn't matter if he was a mad man as we were already in his car so it was too late for us now. He kindly dropped us off in town in one piece and we headed for the YHA travel agent to book our activities. After spending another half an hour looking at the options again we finally booked a Gondola trip up the mountain in Queenstown with a 6 course meal at the top for that evening, a jet boat trip in the canyon the following day at mid-day and paragliding in the afternoon. We then headed back to the campsite via a couple of little shops.

When we got to the campsite we got changed into our smartest clothes (eg combats, hiking boats and a hoody) and started to head back into town. This time we hadn't even reached the campsite gate and our taxi friend pulled along side us and offered us another lift. We said we were going for a drink before heading up the Gondola so he dropped us at his favourite bar, saying its not the cheapest place but its nice. We were a bit concerned but it turned out to be really cheap anyway $5 (£2.60) for a humongous glass of wine. We sat in the lovely bar drinking our wine and listening to a couple play the piano before heading on towards the gondola.

When we reached the Gondola we jumped onboard and headed up seeing some amazing views of Queenstown and the mountains and lake surrounding it. We reached the top and went to the observation view for a look before heading back down to the dinner hall. We got a nice bottle of New Zealand wine and then sat by a window looking across Queenstown waiting for our buzzer to go off and tell us our table was ready. After 10 minutes and half a glass of wine it went off and we headed to our table. It was a great location by a window looking out on mountains so we could watch as the light outside turned to darkness. The meal was fabulous; first we went up and had soup, then I went up to have fish and salad, whilst Rachel had a selection of meats and salad, then I went up and got the selection of meats and salad. Then we went up and got roast dinner, then curry. After a couple of minutes we went up for platefulls of cakes and ice cream. Then we went up for cheese and finally coffee. After about half an hour trying we then managed to lift our massive tummies of the chair and woddle out, looking around and seeing that we were almost the last ones left. We had a quick look up at the view observation point again, seeing Queenstown all lit up, then headed down the Gondola. After woddling around town for half an hour seeing it at night, we woddled back to the campsite for bed.

The next day we had a nice lie in then walked into town in the rain (our taxi man wasn't there today ) to be picked up by the jet boat people. They arrived and we got taken in a minibus for about an hour along mountainous roads, seeing some amazing views and rock formations. We then arrived at the jet boat point and got kited out with waterproofs and hats and then jumped in. It was an awesome ride, we got close to the canyon walls, I'm sure I could have touched them, and did a few 360 degree spins where we nearly flew out the boat. We stopped off at a few viewpoints including a couple of bungie jump bridges and a goldmine site. When we arrived back at the dock we jumped back into the bus and headed to the top of one of the bungie bridges for a walk along it, shame no one was doing one. We then headed back to town.

We spent a few hours exploring the town, shops, harbour and gardens then headed to the pick up point for paragliding. We jumped in another mini bus, then had a 20 minute drive with the guys we were flying with telling us scare story's. We got to the top of a mountain and they laid out the paraglide, then strapped us on. We then ran down a hill and the paraglide pulled behind us then filled up and swept us up into the air. It was amazing flying over the land, looking out at mountains and flying close to mountainous rocks. We were up for nearly 20 minutes then came to a landing spot. I waited for Rachel as she had taken off after me and she was still up in the air, so I tried taken photo's of her. After taken photo's of 3 random paragliders I finally got her and took one of her landing. We then chatted about how amazing it was then the Guy Rachel had been with came over and showed her her videos and photo''s. About 10 minutes later we got in the bus and headed back towards town, still my guy hadn't shown me my photo's. He then turned round and said 'I have bad news the SD card doesn't seem to have saved your photo's' I felt gutted, he then said 'we have 2 options, you can either give me your email and if I manage to get the SD card working I can send you a link to download them, or I can take you up again to do another fly'……..I tried not to laugh, as if he had given me a choice there, there was really only 1 option to fly again. So after dropping off the rest of the group and picking up a couple more people we headed back up. This time Rachel waited at the bottom to take photo's of my landing. The wind had picked up a bit so it was even better then the first time and this time he did a spiral drop which was awsome. So I was one of the luckiest people there.

Afterwards we got dropped of back in town and since it was getting late we decided to just grab some fish/steak pie and chips for dinner. We then headed to an ice bar and had a drink before walking back to the campsite and relaxing for the evening after our busy day.