Hi guys,

How's it going? I'm currently in the home of the Ferg Burger, which is Queenstown, located on the south island of New Zealand. It's known as the adventure capital of the world, and rightly so as you can do all the extreme sports here.

Since my last post I've covered prettyu much most of New Zealand that I'm going to see, I leave here next Tuesday for Chile and the South American continent which I can't wait for. It shoul dbe amazing but I need to brush up on my Espanol.

Anyway, since Auckland, I travelled around the north island, where I went to a traditional Maori village, where we saw a show, met some Maori's and had a proper meal which they call a hangi. The food was amazing, and it's cooked under ground. I then went black water rafting, where you sit in a rubber tube and float around in dark caves, which have glow worms residing in them. THe best part is you have to jump of waterfalls on your tube backwards. That was great fun.

I then went to Taupo where I did one of my main to do things on my travel to do list, which was a sky dive. The weather was perfect, and I wasn't nervous as my friends went before me and told me how great it was. I even went on a propeller plane, which aren't my favourite, and I was all fine until the first person dropped out the plane. At that point I got really worried, but I couldn't back out as the guy I was strapped to move me to the door, hung me out the plane and then rocked a few times before jumping. The first 20 seconds were a blur, but after that I went mental and the freefall was over so quick. Once the chute came out, which it did thankfully, it was a nice relaxing descent to the ground, and it allowed me to take in the sights. I have a couple of dvd's for it but they are too big to put up online at the moment.

A few days later I went to Tongorairo National Park, and did a walk there. It's one of the top 10 walks in the world apparently. I got to see Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings, and I'm pretty sure I was walking through Mordor. The weather wasn't great and the first part was really hard work but I completed it in 5.5 hours. I was absolutely shattered afterwards.

I then spent 4 days travelling around the east of the north island, and stayed in the city that see's the sunrise first in the whole world which was cool. The east is really different as there are really small towns. I also went stingray fishing which was amazing. I fed some massive stingrays, when they take the food from you it's like a hoover sucking up the food. We were meant to go possum shooting, as they are pests in New Zealand. You go out at night with a torch, laser and gun and shoot as many as you can, but we couldn't as half the group decided to become Greenpeace eco warriors and we didn't have enough people. Stupid hippies......

From there we travelled to Wellington and spent 2 nights there. It was nice to be in a city again, and I made the most of Nandos. I also went on a Lord of the Rings tour, and got some inside goss, nothing overly exciting. From here I got the ferry to the south island and spent some time in Nelson, before travelling down the west coast. One of the stops was at Franz Joseph, where I did a full day glacier trek. This was absolutely amazing. We walked to the glacier, then put cramp ons and walked the glacier, going through crevass' and climbing through ice caves. It was really easy actually, as they had to keep stopping to axer out a path for us, but the views were out of this world.

I then arrived in Queenstown, where I had told myslef I would do a bungy jump, and the one I was to do was the Nevis bungy which is a drop of 134m. When we arrived in Queenstown we stopped at another bungy spot, as a couple of people were doing jumps here. This was the one of the bridge, the very first site in the world to have bungy jumps, and I saw it and was automatically worried. It looked really scary, and it was only 43m. THe jump I was going to do was 3 times bigger, I was in over my head. Needless to say I went out that night and drank loads, mainly because it was our last bus stop. I woke up early this morning and could only think about the jump. I was quite relaxed about it but now I was worried. It had been on my mind for the last 3 weeks!

I got the place, and the bus there was the quietest bus I've ever been on. I didn't want to look down, but we had to get a cable car to the bigger cable in order to do our jump so I ended up looking down numerous times. It didn't seem that bad but my legs were like jelly. I got to the main cable car and they jump you in weight order, heaviest to lightest. I assumed I would be one of the first but I was 4th or 5th, not good. The first few people jumped and it was nerve racking.

It got to my turn and I had to sit on this rickety seat while they attached the cord to my feet. The guys working there were really cool and made me feel as much at ease as possible. I then had to walk to the platform where I jump from, and as it's quite small I was looking at where my feet were. I ended up looking down, not good, but not as bad as I thought it would be. The guy did the countdown and I decided if I didn't go first time I would be in all sorts of trouble so I just went for it, shouting out some expletitives as I dropped the 134m. It was strange as, as soon as I had jumped I was hurtling to the ground but it didn't feel bad. I was shouting, then stopped, and found I was still falling. When the cord was fully extended it threw me back up a long way before I dropped again.

At this point on the 2nd bounce up, I was meant to pull a cord by my knee to release my legs and enable me to be pulled up in a seating position. However my ineptness meant it didn't work so I had the pleasure of being pulled up feet first, it was a weird feeling as it took ages. The guys working there gave me so much stick and left me hanging outside for ages, I was quite relaxed about it, I think it was all the adrenaline, it was definitely adrenaline overload. I even considered doing another one, but don't think I could handle the added adrenaline. After that it was fine, and just cheered on everyone who was still to go. I had managed to do possibly the scariest thing ever in my life, with minimum fuss, it was a great feeling.

When I got back to Queenstown I treated myself to a world famous Ferg Burger. If you ever go travelling, anyone you meet that's been to Queenstown will always talk about Ferg Burger. It's quite expensive but the burgers are amazing and best of all they are huge. I'm going to try and eat the big Al burger which is huge but maybe will wait a few days. I'm off to Milford Sound tomorrow, and then it's St Paddy's day on Thursday so I can look forward to them without having a Bungy jump knawing away at me!

I'm back in AUckland on Monday before my flight to South America, so my next post should be from there. I get to have a go at this time travelling malarky, as I'll be leaving NZ at 5pm and arriving in Chile on the same day at 1pm. Who needs a DeLorean and a Flux Capacitor? Definitely not me!!

Take care