After my relaxing evening first stop the next day was a bizarre place called Puzzling World. Basically it has four rooms?full of illusions to play tricks on the senses and make for some great photos. It also has the world's only three dimensional maze - a real back to your childhood experience for a few hours.

Then on the way into Queenstown we stopped at Kawarau Bridge for some brave souls to bungy 47m into the river below. To prolong their agony a bit further we were first treated to the secrets of bungy tour where we were told all about how the craze began and how bungys are made etc. It was a bit of a promotional gimmick for the company to try and convince even more of us to part with our money and hurl ourselves off a bridge held on by a mere piece of elastic, but not me - no way never - in fact all it did for me was make me realise how I absolutely never want to do it! But like I said there were a few people who took the plunge, one girl even opting to do it wearing nothing but her pants (!). I was just as content?watching, while my stomach lurched at the thought of it, although I have to admit it was a great setting, the river below being so aqua blue within?a dramatic gorge.

We had a quick stop in Arrowtown for lunch, which reportedly has the best pies in New Zealand. My spicy chicken was pretty tasty but not sure it was the best I've had...think aussie pies might be better! Then finally we arrived in Queenstown and after a group photo by the lake there was time to settle in before a big party night...Now when I say party most of us enjoyed a fairly uneventful yet enjoyable evening sampling the wild nightlife of Queenstown but there's always one person who takes it a bit far, and we had one of those. One of the american guys who'd been travelling with us had just a few too many and decided to put his foot through the hostel wall. Needless to say it wasn't long before he was flattened by a bouncer and promptly found himself admiring the walls of the local police station!

But my hangover was nowhere near as bad as his so I was up reasonably early the next day to explore Queenstown. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas. Not only was it raining?but the temperature had plummeted overnight by over 10 degrees. We'd enjoyed a comfortable 18 degrees and sunshine the day before, now it was only 7 degrees - time for the wooly hat and gloves me thinks! Eventually it did clear up for a bit so I went for a wander around the town and down around the lake. And the weather does have some redeeming features however, as it produced a fantastic rainbow over the water. Although I was starting to worry a bit as I had booked to go jet boating through?the Shotover canyons in the afternoon and when I arrived to check in they told me that the previous hour's boats had all been cancelled due to the rain. I spent a panic stricken 20 minutes waiting to find out whether I'd be able to do it and luck was on my side as eventually they decided it was ok and we were the first boat back out on the river. It was a great thrill ride, hurtling through the canyons, so close to the rocks and at times speeding over just 10cm of water. We got soaked doing lots of 360 degree spins, but it was all just over too quickly!

The next day was an early 6.30am start for a long drive down to Milford Sound in the Fiordland national park - one of the most famous tourist sites in New Zealand. We saw the first covering of snow on the mountains, which was a definite sign that the weather was on the change. There were plenty of photo stops along the way - at Te Anau, Mirror Lakes, The Chasm, Homor tunnel etc. But we arrived at Milford Sound by lunchtime to board our boat for a closer look at the stunning scenery from the water. Milford Sound runs 15 km from the Tasman Sea and is surrounded by sheer rock faces that rise over 1200m. With an annual rainfall of 6813mm, it is also known as the wettest place in New Zealand and one of the wettest in the world. But the plus side is this creates dozens of temporary waterfalls, as well as a number of major, more permanent ones, cascading down the cliff faces, some reaching 1000m in length.

Once on the boat the weather closed in a little and we discovered how wet Milford Sound could be! We went up the sound passing Mitre Peak, Bowen Falls, Fairy Falls, Stirling Falls and all the way until we could see the Tasman sea. The captain even took the boat right under some of the waterfalls, just so we could all get a bit wetter!

That night I decided to stay over in Milford to get away from the chaos that is Queenstown. I spent a relaxing evening just chilling out and chatting to a group of people who had just walked the 54km Milford Track, supposedly one of the must-dos for all avid hikers out there. And the next morning I was rewarded with a beautiful day; still very cold but thankfully no rain. I set off to explore all the things I wasn't able to the day before, walked around the foreshore, took some great pictures without spots on the lense (!) and just sat for a while drinking in the amazing scenery. On the way back to Queenstown in the afternoon there was much more snow around, clearly the mountains had seen some serious snow action overnight.  I even saw my first flakes of falling snow as we got to the Homor tunnel.

Overall I'd say Milford Sound is definitely worth a visit if you get to the South Island, but for spectacular limestone formations I still think you've got to go a long way to beat those of the south coast of Thailand - somehow the sun adds that extra dimension!