Hello everyone,

We've had a rather action packed last few days! Martin got up early on Friday and did his bungee jump - I would have gone to watch but paying $50 to drive up a dodgy mountain road +standing in a glass pod 150m off the ground didn't really do it for me - a lie-in it was!

Enter martin to talk about bungee…

It was more of a bungee 'tip of the edge' than a bungee jump as I was rather nervous! The jump is the highest in New Zealand and the 5th highest in the world, and stands at a shockingly high 134m (or about 440ft for you oldies), that's about 32 stories. The crew drove me and about 15 others out to a random canyon near Queenstown and we took it in turns, 3 at a time, to be taken out to this tiny pod, suspended on a couple of (hopefully strong ropes) in the middle of the canyon. From here it was just a case of being strapped in and then checked (luckily) a few times before having to throw myself off! I was second out of the group - the first girl was off the platform before I even had time to put my straps on! (a tad mental I think). Unfortunately the bungee guys aren't allowed to push you off the edge (may have been easier), instead you have to waddle forward with your legs tied together towards the edge and then attempt to throw yourself off headfirst after the count of 3! You get 8-9 seconds of freefall before the rope stops you and bounces you back up (although it seemed much more than that!!). I really enjoyed the jump...not sure I'd do another one for a while - that might be enough exhilaration to last a decade I think!

Enter Katie to talk about things other than jumping off cliffs…..

After Martin got back from his bungee we celebrated his 'coming back up' as it were by going for a burger, a ferg-burger to be precise. We've heard a lot of rumours about this particular burger joint so decided we had to go check it out for ourselves. It's nothing special to look at but the queue at lunchtime was literally coming out the door and by the time we sat down, going down the street! People were right to recommend it - definitely best ever burger! I went for a slightly more tame blue cheese option but Martin in classic eyes-bigger-than-stomach style decided to have the second biggest one on the menu! 'Mr Big Stuff' by name and also by nature it turned out - I went to pick them up from the counter and Martin's burger felt like a brick!! At least 10 inches diameter - you can't really tell from the photos too well!

In order to walk off this giant lunch we went for a wander through Queenstown's gardens - every city/town in NZ/OZ seems to have botanical gardens, and usually they just turn out to be a park but these were particularly nice and even came with a rose garden and pond - fancy! The gardens are on a peninsular that runs out from the town so we were able to sit and watch all the boats going in and out of Queenstown, including giant steam boats and smaller massively speedy jet boats (another activity planned when we get to the north island).

After a chilled evening finishing the rest of the boxed wine (thank god - we realised yesterday it was only 5% abv…not happy!!!) and watched some rather strange choice programs on NZ television - with all the nice outdoors to enjoy, they clearly don't put much effort into their programme production!!!

Today (Martin's birthday, hooray!!) we got up far to early and got picked up by the balloon guys to take us to the launch site. After our first bout of rain came last night in a big way we were pretty worried it wouldn't be clear enough to fly but the blue skies came back again! At the site, Martin and one of the other guys we were with helped to inflate the balloon by blowing cold air into it - this took a surprisingly long time, but then the balloon is 25m tall so I guess that's a lot of air! After the balloon was inflated we all jumped in the basket and up we flew! The ride was really smooth and because they go at dawn, the scenery was even more spectacular. We got up really high - around 4000ft above sea level (3000 above the ground) so we were up higher than all the mountains around us! Queenstown serves as a base for one of NZ's biggest ski-areas in the winter and we could see some of the chair lifts on the mountains around us.

After an hour of flying we landed (very gently too!) and had a breakfast of champagne and croissants. Back at the hostel by 11, and post nap we've just chilled out this afternoon in preparation for going out for dinner and drinks this evening - I think Martin's eyeing up the $140 fish platter on the menu so I'd better have the credit card ready!!!

Off to Milford sound on a cruise tomorrow - hopefully not going to be too hung-over for the 6-7 hour round trip!!!

Will update in a few days as we've got a fair bit of ground to cover. Martin says thank you for all the birthday messages!

Lots of Love, Martin and Katie

(3 days till Dolphin swimming; 4 days till touring the Wine region; 7 days to train for mountain hike of death)