13/04/09

I woke up at 0530 and remembered I had promised I would phone home at 7pm home time. The clocks had now changed so I would now have to phone at 6am instead of 8, so I walked in to Hawea which was about a 2km walk. When I finally got there the phone turned out to be a card only phone so I jogged back and then drove back to Wanaka and phoned from the coin phone there. I had 7 Weet-Bix for brekkie along with a BLT sandwich 2 nut bars and a pancake. We all stole showers from the camp site we stayed at the other night and then filled up with Diesel, not unleaded, posted our post cards and I drove to Queenstown. Laura and I had a few rounds of 20 questions and We passed the Nevis bungy jump and canyon swing on the way.

We arrived and spent the afternoon booking all our tours and trips then went for a wander around town. The girls were gagging for a Cotton On to browse through, and Laura was going mental for some Pizza. We stumbled upon a street performer. He was well funny, the way he spoke to the crowd had the lads and I in stitches, he actually looked like an excaped mentalist. His first trick was to blow up a sausage balloon and stuff the whole thing down this throat. He then juggled some fire and got someone from the audience to put a straight-jacket on him then tie him up with a chain while he attempted to flick a flaming hat off his foot and on to his head, a feat which took him 7 attempts, we couldn't stop laughing. He got out of the jacket and chains then swallowed a sword.

We went back to the van via the info site where the woman informed us that the traffic wardens all knock off at 6pm so we could leave the van where it was worry free and go out for the night. We went back to the van, Coops and I watched a few Simpsons while Helen phoned and the guys went for a few games of pool then we cooked up a risoto dish and headed out. We played pool in a pretty deserted bar for an hour or so and then headed off to Winnies Pizza bar. The moment I walked in the smell of cheese hit me in the face and I instantly started craving pizza. we sat around a table and eventually were moved on by a member of staff as he was making room for 100 US kids that would be arriving soon. They made a hell of a racket, typical Americans, they soon started pissing me off and we headed back to the camper at about midnight. I drove us a few km out of town and we found a rather slopy gravel layby to pull up at for the night. I managed to rip my duvet cover in half when pulling it out of the seat because I was in a s*** mood from the night out.

14/04/09

I woke up at 0745 and drove the others back to the carpark so we could get the early doors all day parking for $2.50 untill 11pm. We got there and just got back in bed until about 10. We eventually got all our things together and headed off to find the Frisbee Golf. We got there and couldn't find anywhere to hire out frisbees so we had to make do with the one. The aim of the game is to throw the frisbee to hit a post or land in a cage in the least number of throws. After Pats first go he threw it back towards me but missed and it headed straight towards the girls nice and slowly, rather than attempting to catch it they cowered away from it, hid behind the tree and screamed, the couple behind us, Rich, Pat and I burst out laughing uncontrolably. The girls got bored after 2 holes, as predicted, and started throwing the frisbee while twisting their entire body so it would just roll across the floor and end up a few feet away from the tee. Pat attempted throwing it back once he had finished each hole, and each time it never made it back to us and just ended up rolling miles down the hill. Rich and I joked about him never hearing of Pavlovian conditioning and he looked a bit confused. We decided to call it a day after the first 9, Coops was already well over 50, I think I was leading with 30 odd.

We wandered back in to town because we were all starving even though it was only 1230. We had decided yesterday that we were going to have a burger at FergBurger. We got there at prime time, there were huge queues of people waiting for their orders in the street. We muscled our way through and managed to place an order, we went to the lake and sat on the wall to eat it. Rich and I had ordered a Big Al, I'd ordered chips with mine as well, Pat had ordered the Mr. Big Stuff because he didn't fancy the egg. We were amazed when we unwrapped them, they were HUGE! I've never seen a bigger burger, no picture can do it justice. There was no way of getting your mouth around it. 1/2lb of prime NZ beef, loads of bacon, 2 eggs, loads of beetroot. I looked over at Rich for some idea of how to tackle it, he was just shoving his face in it, there was no way of keeping your nose out of it, he had it all matted in his beard. I'm not the best burger eater at the best of times, so I just took bites out of it from all different random angles but it seemed to work. I was a little dissapointed with Rich, he had to have a break half way, mine was gone in a few minutes along with the chips. We sat and enjoyed wathcing the ducks being fed and let our food go down for a while.

On the way back we stopped in at an STA Travel shop and asked a few questions about Fiji. We decided we didn't want any of their crazy packages, and certainly couldn't afford them anyway, so we booked a hostel on the mainland and decided to organise it ourselves later. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the lake reading by the ducks. The sun went down behind the mountains so I headed back and stumbled upon the girls in Starbucks. I then spent a few hours on the net and then headed back to the camper. We parked up at the same spot again for the night.

15/04/09

Rich got up and drove back to the all day car park. I got up when we got there and we both got ready to go to the A. J. Hackett Nevis bungy tour shop. We got there at 9 as instructed and had to wait half an hour for them to call us, luckily they had apple macs with free internet for us so we were able to pass the time. We were weighed and had all our details scribbled on our hands, both of us 63kgs. We were driven out past the original bungy bridge and much further in to the mountains. We ended up going in to private land and up a scenic route along some really steep roads. The driver had to use 1st gear the entire way, the bus sounded like it was going to explode at any minute.

When we arrived we were ushered towards the Nevis Arc first. From here we had the joy of seeing a few others do the bungy from a distance. Some of the noises coming out of their mouths when they jumped were hillarious. One bloke screamed like a girl all the way down, then up and down again. Rich and I watched 4 people do the Nevis Arc both as tandem swings, it looked good. Within 2 seconds of them being dropped they were specs on the other side of the canyon. Rich went first and let out a hell of a yelp as he went. When they brought him back up they left him swinging at the top, it was really funny because I could tell he wasn't enjoying it, all he wanted to do was get his feet back on the ledge. The guy doing the releasing asked me if I wanted a count down, I said I didn't care, so he said 'ok, we haven't done a countdown yet today...you can have one...5..' then he dropped me. It was awesome, but over and done with in a matter of seconds. Probably the biggest swing I'm ever going to go on.

We then went back through the reception and got re-weighed for the bungy. We stood at the edge of the high wire platform and watched about 20 people jump before we got transported in to the middle pod. As we were waiting there Rich and I noticed one girl that looked really on edge, she kept asking questions like 'has the bungy ever snapped' and 'has anyone ever died', the guide didn't do the best job of reassuring her and she looked really pale and genuinely ill.

When we got there I realised that my shoes would probably fall off and they wouldn't let me do it barefoot like they did for the Arc, so I had to nab a reel of tape and tape them round my ankles. One girl that went shortly before Rich and I started cracking up when she got to the ledge and began to shake and started saying she couldn't do it. The operator sort of nudged her more and more forward saying that it would be ok. She then put her foot against the back of her foot and used her knee on the back of the girls legs along with a little tap in the middle of the back and pretty much shoved her off the edge. It was so funny. She certainly looked as though she had enjoyed it when she came back up.

Rich went shortly after this and let out a great scream on the way down. This time he managed to do his classic swimming pool dive off the ledge rather than just squating down and Mr. Beaning it off. It looked awesome. I went next, got a decent dive off the top and enjoyed the 3-4 seconds free fall on the way down, it felt amazing. Pulled the cord to put me in to the seating position but it was more uncomfortable so I had to do a bit of harness re-arrangement. The girl that was getting really worried about the jump was still to jump so we asked if we could hang around and watch, we were sure she was going to be a non-jumper. She did really well, no hesitation at all, she just got to the edge and swan dived off perfectly.

We got back to reception, ordered the photos and DVD and then waited for the bus ride back. We got back 2 hours late to find that Pat was in the camper cooking noodles yet again. The girls had waited for us, Helen only got up at half 11, but had enough and gone to the shops. They came back a little while later and we decided to go to the pub to play some pool, the free pool table was taken so that turned in to us using the free internet in the bungy shop. We needed to charge the battery and fill up with water so Rich drove to the BP, then to Arrowtown while I laid in bed. Every time we drove down a slight hill I got a nasty wiff of what I initially thought was Helens anus, I later realised it was the sink. Laura and I prepared a Chicken mash and veg with a mushroom sauce. We couldn't do any washing up because the waste was full and the sink stank really badly. We had pots, pans, plates and cutlery all over the place as we drove off the the layby. Laura and I watched The Usual Suspects in the evening while the others read books and we had an early night to prepare for tomorrow.

16/04/09

Woke up to Rich having the first of his mandatory 2 pisses and when he re-entered the van I drove off to the car park in town. The weather was sounding awful, the rain was hammering down on top of the camper. Luckily the camper was making it sound worse than it was, when we stepped outside, leaving Rich alone, the rain turned out to be light drissle. It was still looking very gloomy though. We all walked over to the 24 hour public toilets and waited whilst Pat had a mamoth turd, apparently he had to de-jacket in order to get it out. We walked to the Raft shop and waited for half an hour for the bus to turn up. We were driven to the Shotover river where we were kitted out with yet another wet suit, jacket and boots, this time we had a helmet as well. I'd learned from my previous mistakes and only wore boxers rather than swiming shorts under my wet-suit. Pat and I waited for a while for the girls to finish getting in to their suits so we could ride on the same bus on the way to the drop off point. When they finally came out they hopped on the bus and were the last ones to get on so Pat and I had to get on the second one.

The journey to the drop off on the Shotover River was awesome, we went across some crazy private land where loads of scenes from Lord of the Rings were shot. The road was ridiculous, it was a snaking pathway around sheer cliff edges that had been created by explosives beneath and then, according to Laura, they were reinforced with rocks and cow-pats for mortar. It was a very scenic drive, although a little scary because we had to take the corners very wide in the bus with the trailer full of rafts on the back. When we arrived we were told that it was our last toilet stop until the end and if anyone urinated in their wet-suits it would react with the dye and they would look like a smurf for the rest of the day. Laura was bursting but the ladies was out of order so she had to hold it.

We had 3 blokes in our raft all of whom had the thickest Irsih accents which I just couldn't understand at all. Our guide was Paul, again another quality guide, he had us all working as a well oiled team within a few minutes. The first half of the rafting was pretty flat with a few areas of grade 2 white water dispersed along the way so we spent the time practicing our stances for holding on, getting down and shifting left and right. One part got really flat and we all decided to jump out and have a bit of a float down stream. I managed to smash my knee on a submerged rock when clambering back in. When we did manage to get back in some guy from another raft had drifter too far away, when he finally got back in he had gashed his finger open so we had to paddle alongside and let him hop in to our raft because Paul was the medic. He managed to bandage him up while we were floating downstream through the rapids. Soon enough he was back in his raft and we were heading towards the 'Mother' which was a 500 metre stretch of grade 4 rapids. We made it through fine, although we did get rather wet in the process. As we were paddling out to check on the other rafts Paul managed to fall out of the back and Laura had to pull him back in. While we were waiting for the others to come down Paul made Helen stand in knee deep water holding the raft with us all in because he didn't want to get cold ankles. As the other rafts came down we could all spot which one had the Americans in, they were all shouting like t*** and chanting a Power Rangers song at the top of their voices, we all had a huge rant about how much we hated those typical Americans.

As we set off Paul got Laura and I to swap sides, claiming that he was trying to balance the raft out a bit, even though we pretty much weigh the same. He then started telling us how he has only flipped 4 times in his 5 months working the Shotover River, 3 of which have been on the last rapid. Towards the end, after 16km of rafting we came to the tunnel where we had to squat inside the raft, duck down and huddle together. As we came out the other side Paul shouted for us to all paddle as hard as we could and we then plummeted down into a huge rapid. The right side which I was now on tipped under the water and flipped under. We all went down, I got a full lung of water as I went under. When I came up I was making the most ridiculous gasping noise, it took a few breaths to clear the water from my lungs and get a decent breath. I was under the raft, so I climbed out and then realised that I'd not only managed to keep hold of my paddle but had acquired Lauras as well. As I swam to the river bank I noticed Laura was gasping just as much as I was as we had both recieved a lung full and got stuck under the raft. Helen had fallen out into the flowing water and was being swept away so Paul had to get his safety rope out and sling it to her and reel her in. I'm not sure what happened to Pat. We had a good laugh about it when we got on to the river bank, and decided that it was definately worth the money now we had flipped. We all hopped back in the raft and paddled the few hundred metres to the finish.

We got out of our wet-suits and got to have hot showers. For some reason the girls always seem to get cubicles and we are left with a wall to wall sausage fest. We took the next bus back to town and spent the afternoon lazing in the back of the camper. Pat and Helen left at about half 2 to go to do the original A. J. Hackett bungy jump from the K Bridge. This left Laura, Rich and I with the task of taking the camper to Stewarts Motors out of town to get the waste pipe fixed as it was so blocked. Getting out of the car park was the biggest challenge I've experienced in the camper so far. We ended up stuck with a car on the back left of us with 1mm from its bumper and the side of us and a jeep at the front right a few centimetres away. I spent a few minutes jiggling it around but there was no hope of moving it between the two cars without scraping the front of one. In the end I had to reverse it all the way back and do a full loop of the car park, the entire time being dangerously close to all the other cars.

I had been given directions from the woman in the info site, she told me to go past the BP garage and turn left. I did this but got the wrong BP garage on the opposite side of town, so off we went again. We got to Stewarts, parked up and told him what the problem was. He took a power drill to the side of the van, I'm still not sure what he did, but it didn't help because he had misunderstood the problem, he thought the water wasn't draining from the sink. I told him what the problem was again and he told me to go to a garage and shove a hose up the grey water pipe and try to dislodge the blockage. We drove to a top 10 park and the waste started draining pretty well to begin with. It soon slowed down so we tried shoving a hose up it with no luck. We took the camper back to Stewart and waited about an hour for him to have a go, he didn't seem to have any luck either and recommended we just leave it open all the time and drive with it open so it doesn't get blocked up and stink. We stopped off at fresh choice on the way back to pick up some food and Laura threw a gone off half eaten pot of cream cheese out the door when we parked up, she wouldn't get out and pick it up when we told her to claiming that the birds would eat it.

We got back to the car park at about half 6, just in time for Pat and Helen to return from their bungy. They both seem to have really enjoyed it. I spent the evening sorting out all the DVD's from the bungies in Global Gossip.

17/04/09

Woke up to Rich having a piss again. When he'd been for his second he drove us to the Top 10 caravan park. We got there and I laid in bed reading while Laura sewed the big rip in the duvet cover. We all had showers and sorted out all the washing and sheets. I did my own washing a little while later and chilled out in the camper all afternoon while the others went in to town. The weather was s***, it was raining most of the day. I spent all day worrying about having another s*** night out, when the time came to go out I felt too ill to go out so stayed behind and read a book while the others went out. When they came back the girls were completely smashed, Laura had 'borrowed' a hoody that she had found over the back of a chair and her and Rich spent the next half an hour trying to make a deal about the single bed. It was Lauras turn in it but it hadn't been made yet and no one could be bothered to do it. I went out to the campsite living room and read some more until they had all settled down.