The Kiwi Experience does thrill rides.

Queenstown means not a lot to a lot of people but to me it means so much, it means adrenaline pumping, fear over coming, laughing, drinking, rugby world cup fun fun funnnn!

So Queenstown is a little town at the bottom of New Zealand, the gate way to the beautiful Milford sound and some great snowboarding, it's nestled against the side of a mountain and cups a beautiful lake. So obviously it has a lot of natural stuff going for it but Queenstown had been affected by the genius of man who have come up with some incredible ways of keeping us entertained. It's like some dude rocked up and went yeah ok so the views are stunning, the natural adventure possibilities world famous and the people just delightful but this isn't enough - we need to make it better, and so they did.

Challenge number 1- The Bungee Jump.
Prior to my Ferg comma I had begun the day with a note, a tiny post it note stuck to my dorm room door - which said "Jones, the weathers not bad, shall we bungee? Or are you too hung over? Come find me, Vicky". Now this note may seem subtle, it may seem rather tame but I knew what this note was really saying … "Jones, today we bungee …. No arguments, enough said" - I was going to do my first ever bungee!
I went and found Vicky and we bounced down to "The Junction" in the centre of Queenstown which is where all AJ Hackett activities are booked. AJ Hackett is a kiwi icon, he alone solidified New Zealand's reputation as the adrenaline capital of the world by being the first man to invent commercial bungee jumping. On a bridge over a river the crazy man named Hackett strapped a bungee cord to his waste, smiled to the cameras and jumped! He not only lived but changed the bridge into the first place in the world to safely bungee and now I was going to this bridge to give it a go myself.

I'm not even joking, in the van on the way there I was sh*&ing myself! I literally couldn't understand why I was doing this? I never bow to peer pressure so why the hell was I about to chuck myself upside down off of a 50ft bridge? Vicky was pretty calm really, I could tell she was nervous but she was just going through the motions and enjoying the rush you get as they weigh you and put the strap on your wrist which allows you access to the bridge. Just writing this now I'm shaking a little, I mean I have jumped off of cliffs before but never bounced back and done it twice again? This felt high and strange and when I peeked over the edge I didn't want to do it?! But then I saw a girl go ahead of us, she was crying - like sobbing and shaking and she was all red, she was the picture of terrified! And after 4 attempts, 4 countdowns she was still stood on the ledge, acting like if she jumped it would be the end of her, they counted her down again and at 1 she was still there and then just as everyone had given up hope she screamed and jumped. I couldn't believe it - what a freakin hero she was! And that was it all my nerves were gone, I mean if that girl could do it I bloody well could so I stepped onto the ledge, crawled under the barrier and put my ankles together ready for the bungee cord to be attached. Did I mention I was doing a tandem? Oh yeah me and Vicky were going to be jumping together! But now the tables had turned and Vicky was shaking like a leaf, biting her lip and furrowing her brow - she was scared. But she had me! I was there to distract her and get her pumped up, as they shuffled us to the edge, me barefoot, Vicky nearly in tears I was excited, in 3 seconds I was going to jump off of a bridge and I couldn't wait! I told Vicky to listen to the pumping dance music and to not focus on anything else, which is why we started dancing, powering up, our arms in the arm and our knees bouncing us up and down. I could hear our friends and Vicky's brother screaming us on and when the crew started the countdown I took hold of vickys waist belt as instructed and then looked at her and as she glanced back and a smile began to cross her face the countdown hit one and with no hesitation we both jumped. We leaped off of a 50ft bridge and went plummeting towards the water; I remember the whole thing, the free fall which was seconds felt like hours. As we fell the wind stole away my scream, like literally - I started to scream and then it was gone, I was holding my breath, my eyes open really wide as the river shot towards us like a car to a deer trapped in the headlights, but just as we went to slam into it we began to slow ever so slightly, then with a little pull on my ankles the river was getting smaller and further away again?! The rest of the bungee was fun, Vicky and I screamed excitedly - proud of ourselves and still buzzing from the adrenaline created not only from the whole falling aspect but also from the courage we had mustered to actually jump. 50ft isn't that far down and too many A-junkies this is nothing but dust but to us we had achieved something, tested ourselves and come out triumphant. Bungee rules - like absolutely rocks, I've never been so petrified before and still managed to trust enough to take that leap - what an awesome experience! I was smiling and bouncy for the rest of the day and both Vicky and I were proud to show off our bungee video to our kiwi experience buddies later that night.
And our prize for jumping was to be treated to a big Al, little did we know that this would be a challenge all of its own?!

Right ok so let's begin with challenge number 2 - THE FERG BURGER!

Ferg started out in the back of a van where some person decided to sell large and delicious new Zealand beef burgers for a cheap price, the van got so popular they bought a little shop and now that little shop has the longest queue in the town, a queue full of back packers, locals and the odd world famous rugby player. For $12's I found myself attempting to devour a burger which was bigger than my head and if held for too long made my wrists hurt - a tower of meat, cheese, beetroot (a very kiwi ingredient) fried eggs, bacon etc anything which has ever been in a burger was now combined into the ultimate of burgers .. The Big Al! Not many people have finished this burger in one sitting and I was another failure, only managing a third before I got the meat sweats and had to lie down but the taste was still as amazing 4 hours later at tea time. The boys all gobbled there's up in one and although satisfied, were oddly silent and panting slightly for the rest of the evening?!

But why do this challenge you might ask? Why stuff yourself like the human equivalent of a turkey? Well the reason for this is simple - why not?! Especially due to the mountain of a challenge I had overcome a few hours earlier.

Challenge number 3 - A Queenstown night out!
I went on quite a few nights out in Queenstown and each was just as good as the last so I'm going to combine the highlights into one. Firstly a Queenstown night out always began in the common room of our hostel named Nomads. The large space was filled with sofas and a large fire place, pool table and long heavy wooden tables for us all to congregate around. We were allowed to drink goon, beer or passion pop until 11pm and so we all made full use of this and played drinking games until we were thrown out of the hostel and into World Bar - a bar famous for its tea pots. You read it right, tea pots! So basically you pick a shot, a random cultural concoction of a shot and then they don't just mix you one, they mix you a teapot full for $5 and give you a load of little shot glasses to go with it - the shots are strong and lethal, especially when you decide not to use the glasses but to just pour it into each other's mouths directly from the spout ha ha
Ok so after many many tea pots have been consumed it's time to move bars to somewhere a little more dance based which is how we found ourselves in the Buffalo club which boast indoor fire pits and dancing on the bar, this would be were Dave got us all thrown out by jumping up with one of the dancers and proudly gifting her with a rather embarrassing strip tease.

After this its back towards the hostel and down an alley way into the Cowboy bar, a themed bar with huge glass tankards of beer, free cowboy hats, a giant stuffed bear, saddles instead of bar stools and a bucking bronco - needless to say we had a lot of fun in this bar. After that god knows where you will end up? Some of us went to Frasers near the lake, some such as me when to Altitude where we spotted a very famous royal rugby player making out with a nameless blonde whilst midgets were being slid along the bar. Then at 5am we all weaved our way home, buying a slice from fat badgers or a pie from the Ferg Bakery and made our way to our hostel where we saw another 2 very famous English rugby players trying to bribe their way into the hostel with pretty young women, one was turned away and so decided to get raunchy on a bench outside, the other was allowed into a private room which the girl paid for?! How embarrassing! The England rugby team certainly weren't thinking of the world cup for the crazy week they spent slumming it with the backpackers in Queenstown, maybe that's why we didn't win?
Speaking of the world cup, I was actually in world Bar for the opening ceremony and some local Maoris came in to do a hakka live for us, it was great! I really love the Kiwi's they are all so friendly and their national spirit is consuming, everyone watches and supports the All Blacks and I even ended up supporting them too - I was beaming when they won and a little upset I wasn't still in New Zealand for the final match as I just know the buzz in any of the cities or town would have been amazing!

Challenge Number 4 - Luge
There are luge tracks all over the world such as the brilliant one in Singapore but this was the first one I decided to have a go on, I mean due to my unfortunate nature and my ability to cause random and seemingly impossible accidents I didn't think putting me in something with wheels and crap breaks and allowing me to hurtle on a concrete track down the side of a mountain was a very good idea. But with my bungee buddy Vicky and the boys in toe off we went up the mountain in a cable car which provided some incredible views! At the top we got our helmets and jumped on a chair lift which didn't feel at all safe (especially as it had started raining and the wind was blowing the seat sideways)to the real peak of the mountain where we jumped into our little go karts without engines and let gravity do its job, I loved luge, the speed, the race, the boys nearly breaking my knuckles - yep as you may have guessed, combining me with such an activity is always going to end in tears and as per usual they were mine as Chris failed to break and slammed into me, trapping my hand which then went black for a few days but I got over it pretty quickly as I sped round the course over and over again - plus meeting Martin Johnson on the way down the mountain afterwards was a great way to distract me, he's a giant and looks a bit like Herman Munster but he happily smiled for a photo and his crew offered to beat up dave due to the simple fact that they didn't like his irishness?! Haha

Queenstown is easily my favourite place in New Zealand and seen as I loved New Zealand so much then you know Queenstown has got to be a pretty fun place to go. I wouldn't have left for another couple of days if I didn't have to move on up to the north island with one last thing to do before I left New Zealand, it was time to throw myself out of a plane!