It was Sunday 12th September and we were on the Magic Bus on our way to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. It is also the South Island's major ski resort town and renowned for clearing your wallet of cash faster than you can say "adrenalin rush".

En-route our bus stopped at the Kawarau bridge where the bungy jumping pioneers, AJ Hackett and Henry van Ashe, first commercialised bungy jumps in 1988. This is now the smallest of the Queenstown bungy jumps at 43m. The highest, Nevis, stands at 134m and is currently the third highest in the world. The third 47m AJ Hackett bungy is at the top of
the gondola which takes you to a viewing point across Queenstown. We watched a jumper at the Kawarau bridge and took a few photos. Mark was thinking of doing the AJ Hackett bungy (he has done a bungy before but many years ago) but when we went to book it, a few days into our stay, they said they wanted NZ$50 for Lisa to watch so we said forget it.
What a rip off!!! We wouldn't mind but it was free for spectators in August and they told us they weren't busy so it's not as if they were losing money for a seat if Lisa was on the bus. Considering they would have already gotten NZ$250 (about £120) from Mark doing the jump we felt it was a bit cheeky. So a viewing at the Karawau bridge was as close as Mark came to doing a bungy.

Anyway, we soon arrived into Queenstown at 5:30pm and were dropped off at our YHA hostel facing Lake Wakatipu. We chose to stay at this hostel as it's a 10 minute walk away from all the noise of the town centre. The views were amazing from our bedroom window. Queenstown has an intense alpine scenery, with snow capped mountains, a vibrant
nightlife and lots of things to do. Just one problem though, it was freezing cold!

It wasn't long before we were in town eating out. Although there were so many restaurants to choose from we ate at the world famous fast food joint called Fergburger. Despite the burgers being really good we were told that the breakfast burger with hash browns is even better!

We took a walk around town to work off the burger and booked ourselves onto a tour to Milford Sound (basically fiord cruise) for the following day with a pick up at 6:50am; another early start. It didn't help that this particular night was spent drinking glasses of
beers along with cocktails out of teapots in the World Bar and downing more drinks in the Buffalo Club until early hours with a number of people we met including Andy, Steff, Cicero, Morgan and Alan from the Magic Bus. Before we knew it, and after numerous beers, Mark was at the pool table Cicero as his doubles partner playing against the locals. Mark and Cicero were on a bit of a roll and departed the table after a number of matches unbeaten. We think the locals were a bit surprised as one of the pairs was eager to play for beers or money (they sounded like a couple of hustlers but were soon silenced by the
Anglo/Brazilian pool wizards). The string of wins was a little unexpected as they have never played together before and could hardly see the table!!!

The following morning we were up and showered ready for the 6:50am bus to Milford Sound. We stopped off at a small town called Te Anau for fish n chips. It was only as we were tucking in that we realised it was only 9:20am!! No wonder we got a couple of strange looks when we ordered the food. Te Anau is a very small town and is the main gateway to Milford and Doubtful Sounds. These "Sounds" are where rivers cut into the land creating huge, and beatiful, valley/fiordlike terrain.

After the Te Anau stop, we continued to the Mirror Lakes, known for its reflections as the water is so still, for some great photos. We then went through the Homer tunnel on the Milford Road which opened after about 15 years of construction in 1954. It's a long tunnel
located very high up in the mountains. Sometimes snow avalanches happen outside the tunnel causing the tunnel and road to be closed hence coaches are not normally allowed to stop there. Fortunately, the avalanche warning level was low so we stopped. As we got out, we were greeted by Kea birds (green parrots) that were ambling around the tourists. The birds are very friendly so we were able to get close to take a few photos after navigating the coachload of Asian tourists carrying half of the world's electronics hanging around their necks. Once they spotted the birds they swarmed round so others could barely get a look in.

We continued winding up the mountains and through the rainforest looking at the aftermath of avalanches that had occured in the past. It was pretty weird being so high up as some of the cloud was below us and around the mountains.

We arrived at Milford Sound, after a marathon coach jouney, at 1pm. We jumped aboard the Milford Adventure boat for a 1hr and 40 min cruise through a region called Fiordland and out to the Tasman Sea. Unfortunately due to the persistent rain and clouds being low in the sky, taking any decent photos was difficult. We did capture some waterfalls and the seals relaxing on a rock but they certainly didn't look like the brochure photos as everything was covered in a shroud of grey; not the brilliant blues of the water and sky and lush greens of the mountain sides we had seen before.

The journey back was very pleasant. The sun came out with not a cloud in the sky!! Typical.

When we got back to Queenstown we had a walk around the town and stopped off for a few beers and dinner in a local pub. For a change rugby was playing on every television!

On Wednesday morning we went on a 90 minute boat trip across the lake by Queenstown. The trip is run by the Million Dollar Cruise company. The navigator of the boat gave great commentary. We learnt that the water in the lake is apparently 99.999% pure; the second purest lake in the world (Lake Rostock is no#1). The lake is 320m deep but only 1m in places. This makes it tricky for the boat to navigate at times.

We cruised past Calvin Heights which is New Zealand's first NZ$1million suburb (hence the name of the cruise company). We really fancy a holiday house sitting on the edge of the lake...so just need a huge lottery win.

We were told that the wooden channel marker posts sunk in the shallower part of the lake many years ago suddenly sprouted and are now willow islands, which adds to the beautiful scenery.

After the boat cruise we spent the afternoon in a fancy chocolate shop using the internet and eating their faboulous chocolate. We came out feeling sick and bloated as we ate too much!

We took a walk around town looking in the shops and stopped off at Kiwi Discovery tour shop to book Mark onto an exhilarating JagAir aerobatic jet flight (basically like the Red Bulls planes) for the next day and also a trip to the Cardrona ski slope for a day of lessons on the following day.

This evening was spent looking for hats and gloves for skiiing. We were lucky we already had waterproof jackets and trousers. Boots and skis are given as part of the ski lesson package. The rest of the evening was spent chilling out in the room as it was so cold outside and snow was forecast.

Early morning, we changed bedrooms as we were staying 2 more nights than we had scheduled. Our new room ended up being a family room with an even better view and with our own balcony.

We were up early so Mark could go on a JagAir adventure flight! Mark went through the health and safety briefing and then got strapped into the aircraft. It was full of extreme adrenalin filled with aerobatics with up to +6 and -3Gs at over 300kph as they twisted and turned over the striking scenery of Queenstown and "The Remarkables" mountain range. When he got back he looked a little lightheaded. I'm not surprised. It turns out that some people "grey out" during the flight i.e. the eyes temporarily lose the ability to recognise colour and some others blackout temporarily!!! We had breakfast and went for a walk so Mark could get some fresh air and get his balance back.

This afternoon we were treated to great weather for the Gondola cable car journey to the top of "Bobs Peak" mountain overlooking the town. We sat in the sun and had a light snack watching the tandem paragliding. Lisa was thinking of having a go but bottled out. Instead we did the luge!!

On our way back we played an indoor game of mini golf. This was actually very fun as we had numerous large objects in the way. Thousands of hours must have been spent in carving the obstacles which included spaceships lifting off, moving cable cars and towers which transported golf balls from one part of the hole to another.

The next day we had an early start as we were picked up by the ski bus and taken upto the Cardrona Mountain for some skiiing. It took forever to get up the mountain on windy roads with sheer drops. It didn't help that the bus was on its last legs. When we got to the top we got kitted out with ski equipment then we were off for a 2 hour ski lesson in the morning followed by a 2 hour lesson in the afternoon. It was great fun learning to ski but the weather conditions got really bad making it difficult to see at times. The snow came down very thick with blizzards almost causing the ski slope to shut. Anyway we got on with it and before we knew it we were skiing with great manoveurability doing all sorts of twists and turns! Lisa fell off the chairlift and couldn't get up making a fool of herself whilst Mark was trying to get his left turns right. Going right was fine but going left was a problem, which isn't great when you are skiing down a slope trying to miss other people.

This was the last of our activities in Queenstown. We both loved the place (our favourite in New Zealand so far) but had to move on otherwise we couldn't do everything we wanted to before departing for Australia on 7th October.

The following morning we left on the bus for Dunedin via Arrowtown. This is a picture-perfect town with many old shops and cottages. The Arrow River beside the town is said to have been one of the richest sources of alluvial gold in the world and in the 1860's attracted a population of gold miners. Several thousand Chinese were in the area of Otago in 1870's and some settled along the river bank. The original buildings remain; parts look like the wild west.

After a few photos we were back on the bus and off to Dunedin.