We drove to our first destination en route to collect Carry and Newton from Christchurch, Kaikoura. We did our usual of rolling up unprepared wanting to swim with the dolphins. It was fully booked but there was luckily two seats left to simply view the dolphins from the boat.. it's like they knew we were coming... Muse reservation! Well what a boat trip to remember, never mind the dolphins!... There were 3 metre swells and were bloody chasing dolphins! We were thinking 'oh no, goodbye land'. Thankfully the skipper knew what he was doing and we were in a twin engine powered boat. It was scary seeing the huge waves heading our way... quite a lot of passengers were taken down with sea sickness. The dusky dolphins were in huge schools enjoying riding the waves at the front of the boat playing dare games.. getting really close to the boat. They were flipping around playfully and even jumping in tandem with their mates. I think the most entertaining thing was watching all the snorkelers flap around making squeaky noises trying to attract the dolphins... it didn't even work! I don't think it was worth double the price to swim with the dolphins since they didn't really come that close, we definitely had the better views. Well after a good couple of hours we were happy to return to dry land.

We met Carry and Newton in Christchurch.. getting four big bags, plus rucksacks and food bags into the car was certainly a task. We got lost in the town centre trying to park up around all the chaos of road closures because of building collapses due to the earthquake. We managed to locate the I-Site to hopefully get some information on booking a skydive.. what a waste of time that was. The old woman couldn't work the computer and had no idea on how to advise... why would you work in an information centre!? After still being clueless we headed towards Lake Tekapo.

We arrived in Fairlie for the night, a small town next to Tekapo. The accommodation in Tekapo was fully booked. The following day we viewed Lake Tekapo as it was freezing, and chilled for a while before continuing to Wanaka, hopefully the place to skydive!

We booked the skydive the following morning in Wanaka!! Whilst contemplating jumping out of a plane we all went on a hike up Roys Peak.. a mountain 3000-3500 ft above sea level with an average of a 35 degree gradient all the way up. We all had old trainers on, not really suitable for what was in store... it took us 3 and a half hours to make it to the very top. It was extremely hard work, especially on the feet. After lunch overlooking the beautiful Lake Wanaka and the surrounding mountains we headed back down the windy track. Two hours and 20 minutes later we reached the car park! Our feet were in agony. Carry ended up walking down the mountain in her socks because of the pain! We all came away with some blisters that day. A challenging day to remember. And we didn't have much choice in forgetting about it.. the next day we all had very tender thighs and legs. With all this we headed to the skydive centre!!

Carry, James and I hobbled into the skydive centre. I really wanted to do the highest possible, 15,000ft but I couldn't justify spending the extra money for 15 more seconds of freefall. On the other hand, of course, James could! So Carry and I booked the 12,000ft package, DVD and photos included, $498. Whilst James' package at 15,000ft was $598. We had to wait a couple of hours, apparently to do with air traffic control (hmm), so it was a good chance for us to either steady the nerves talking to people who we had just watched touch down or to feel even more anxious. James having already done one a few years ago was trying to wind us up... he didn't have much luck though, we contained ourselves very well! Funnily enough I wasn't nervous, I was excited. We clambered into the wonderful bright orange overalls and met our sky dive instructors and camera men. Not before we wrote a last few meaningful words on our hands - James put 'one life live it' and 'awesome', I put 'Carpe diem' and 'oh poo!', Carry put 'forever young' and 'live life'. The journey up in the plane was great... having running commentary of the fantastic lakes and river we were looking at, Lakes Wanaka and Hawea. The instructors kept trying to wind us up whilst each of our camera men were filming, saying they are going to pull the release clasp, and saying that our harnesses are very loose... Carry was a little worried, especially since she was last in the plane and so first out! I was second. The instructors gave us a quick reminder of what to do... sit right on the edge, legs tucked under the plane, belly pushed out and head back on the instructors shoulder. When he taps us on the shoulder during the freefall it means you can put your arms out. So off I went.. the initial somersault out of the plane was the best bit... stomach churning... we freefalled for 45 seconds before the parachute was opened and we glided around absorbing the beauty of the scenery around us, mountains and lakes. I was constantly laughing and that's all you can see on the DVD. I asked Alex, my instructor, to do some funky turns when the parachute was open... that was fun! I asked him the highest he had skydived from, he said 21,000ft!!! James said he didn't feel the same rush as when he did it the first time. He said he felt the cold though, and I could feel it at 12,000ft, so it would be interesting to know how much colder it is up there! After this amazing experience, that one day I would like to do again, we headed back into town for some well deserved food.

The following morning we set off to the adrenalin junkie capital... Queenstown.