The last week in Wanaka and Queenstown has been by far the highlight of New Zealand for me, and a pretty awesome end to the travelling adventure. I'm in Christchurch at the moment, catching my flight in a bit... weeeeiirrd. It's been a pretty activity packed week so I'll just get on with it...

The drive into Wanaka was one of the most stunning of the journey so far, and we've had a lot of pretty amazing views! All towering snowcapped mountains and giant blue lakes, can't beat it. We stopped at a mirror lake where you're supposed to have a perfect reflection of the mountains in the lake, which we did for about two minutes until a load of bloody ducks came along and made a load of waves. But that was ok cos we stopped at another giant lake which was even better. Everyone said NZ would look amazing in winter, I guess this is what they meant!

When we got to Wanaka we went straight to Puzzling World, which is just a big geeky playground with a big maze, millions of optical illusions and a room full of little puzzles. I had a whale of a time! The optical illusion rooms are crazy, with one that makes you look either giant or tiny depending on where you stand, and one that's all tilted so that it looks like water's flowing upwards and is generally a massive mindf***. Pretty cool place all in all, would have been nice to have a bit longer there.

Wanaka itself is pretty great too, next to yet another giant lake with snowcapped mountains in the background, standard NZ scenery. That night there were a load of drinking games being put on by the hostel, starting with a horizontal bungee competition to win some vertical bungees in Queenstown. We got into pairs and I found some random Aussie guy to be my partner. Despite my olympian strength and speed we decided that he should probably do the running with the bungy cord tied to him while I downed the pint he got me. Or, as it turned out, just pour it all over myself cos I'm crap at downing beer. I stank for the rest of the night, oops.

Anyway only the people who got naked had a chance of winning so we were out of that. Next up was bar wars between us and the Stray bus, with musical chairs, kareoke and a dance off. We won everything cos we're awesome. The whole bus got on stage for to sing Boheian Rhapsody and for the dance off, where some random girl who was working for the bungee company randomly got her boobs out to get us some cheers, she really wanted us to win apparently. Went for a freezing cold walk to the lake then called it a night.

The next day we set off to the place everyone I've met has been banging on about since getting to NZ, Queenstown! And to be fair, it's earned its reputation, I love it there. It's surrounded by the lake, snowcapped mountains and forest combo once more but even better, and there's 65 bars in a four block area, just in case you're not into mountains and shiz. First thing we did when we got there was go jump off a bridge... woo BUNGEE TIIIIME! I've already done the biggest bungee in the world in South Africa but cos I'm a crazy daredevil and all that I thought I'd do one again. They pushed me off in South Africa and I look like a ragdoll, plus I blanked most of it from my memory so I wanted to savour the moment this time and jump properly. That didn't quite go to plan.

We got over to the little floating pod 143m above ground and I was all set to do a graceful swan dive, but once I got there I somehow managed to jump off feet first instead, the one thing they kept telling us not to do... oops. Not sure how much of a difference it made but it was TERRIFYING anyway, all I remember is trying to scream but coming out with some weird croaking sound instead, I wasn't that nervous beforehand but I forgot how much your brain freaks out when you try to throw it off a bridge. Fun though! I'd decided to do the Nevis swing as well just for some variety, which I did in tandem with Gabrielle. Everyone said this was far less terrifying than the bungee but it was still freaking scary, think my stomach left my body for a good few seconds!

I won a quiz on the bus on the way into Queenstown (or Laura won it and I just agreed with all her answers) so I got to get the videos and photos for free, win! We made our way back to Queenstown all jittery with adrenaline and rewarded ourselves with the famous Ferg Burger. It was of course delicious although I was still hungry afterwards which is not how it's meant to be! Such a fatty. Had a night out on the town in World Bar where I ran into Dale who I was with in South Thailand and she introduced me to a load of other people and I got distracted and forgot about the fact that I was supposed to be staying sober for Milford Sound the next morning but never mind.

I had a pretty banging headache when I got on the bus for Milford and wasn't too impressed when we were greeted by the most cloudy day we'd had so far. The sky was just one big blanket of white and the clouds were almost low enough to touch so you couldn't actually see any of the mountains on the 4 hour journey over there! We took lots of really varied and interesting photos of whiteness for a while while the bus guy kept telling us how amazing the views we were supposed to be seeing were. He was no Dylan, Dylan was the best bus driver. We eventually got over the mountains and through a pitch black tunnel where we were met with actual blue sky and mountain views, and when we got to the fjords themselves the clouds were much higher so it wasn't a complete waste of a journey after all.

Milford was made by glaciers that were then flooded by seawater, so it looks like a load of steep cliff faces rising from the ocean. It was pretty impressive, but looks better in photos. Apparently it's better in the rain cos all the waterfalls come to life. The highlight was definitely the buffet on the boat! We saw some seals, went to an underwater observatory to see some fish, and went out into the Tasman sea before making our way back to land and the 4 hour bus journey home which felt like it took waaay longer. It was a nice day but the other lot went to play crazy golf instead and it sounds like they had more fun tbh. Pretty much went straight to bed when we got in, spending all day on a bus really takes it out of you.

Anyway I've got to go catch my flight, aaaaaah home! I'll finish the rest when I get there, post 29 hour plane ride. It doesn't feel like I'm going home, I feel like I'm just gonna hop on another Kiwi bus to some crazy new location with crazy new people. But the fact that the next time I write this will be from my own bed is cheering me up a lot, SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE WOO!