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Hi Guys,

So here we are in Queenstown the adventure capital of New Zealand and we have immediately thrown ourselves in at the deep end. We travelled down from Wanaka this morning over a road that cut through the ski hills and Diana coped with it brilliantly, although only in 3rd gear. It was a very hilly climb and we could see why were advised not to use the road in bad weather but luckily it's still sunny here wooo!!

We got to Queenstown by midday which left us the whole afternoon for activities. Once we had got checked in to our hostel, which looks pretty good (we look out on to the lake and instead of the usual tv/internet room it has a whole room of bean bags), we set out for a walk around town. The town is exactly as we thought it would be, much more commercial compared to the other towns we had visited so far but not at all tacky which we thought it might be, and surprisingly relaxed.

Once lunch was eaten and we had investigated the town centre, which is all made up of adventure shops, overpriced clothes shops and loads of bars and restaurants; we headed up the skyline Gondola to take in the views of Queenstown and to ride the Luge that is located at the top. It's fair to say that the views are impressive, made even better because there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The lake looked ridiculously blue as if it had been photo-shopped for a post card. After taking in the views we spent a bit of time watching the paragliders and the Ledge bungee that is located near the top - this one was only 47meters, where as the one I'm doing tomorrow is 134 meters!

The Luge was great fun we had 5 runs down the course looking very cool in our helmets. Katie got quite into it after her second run so as I tried to take photos on the run down she just sped off into the distance. After we had finished the Luge we took the plunge and went to visit the paragliding centre at the top of the hill. This is something Katie had been thinking about doing since seeing a leaflet a few days ago but with the sun shining and seeing a few people take off earlier in the day we decided there and then we were going to do it!!! The people running the paragliding were so chilled out we just turned up handed over the credit card and before we knew it we were stood at the top of the hill 400 meters above Queenstown with Dan and Brendan (our Paraglide pilots) getting strapped in. Katie took off first though I don't think she knew much about it as she was asked to walk forward slowly, then without saying anything else Dan her pilot went into a jog and jumped off the hill. I followed closely after. It was really relaxed once we got into the air just gliding over Queenstown and the lake below. The pilots took a few snaps for us then did a few show-off manoeuvres. When asked if I wanted to go faster for some reason I said yes and then found myself been thrown to the left and right. The landing was as smooth as the take off and strangely seemed to be in a primary school field in the middle of town while they were outside having a PE lesson. It was defiantly worth it; the views and thill of been suspended above the town were great.

Once back on the ground we headed back to the hostel to get ourselves a well deserved glass of wine (yes we are still on the boxes of wine). The plan is to head out for a couple of drinks later which I think I might need as tomorrow morning is bungee day eeek!!!

Love Martin and Katie

(1 day till Bungee; 2 days till hot air balloon; 6 days till Dolphin swimming; 7 days till touring the Wine region; 9 days to train for mountain hike of death)