Hey all. After my last blog we spent a further 5 days in Queenstown. As you have probably seen from my photo's we all did the Nevis Bungy jump. I have never been so nervous in my life as i was that day, and as i am the heavy one of the bunch i had to go first which made me extra nervous, all i kept thinking was what if they haven't got the bungy cord the right length and i am the first to jump. I never look down from when we arrived at the bungy site, whilst on the cable car to the pod in the centre of the mountains, and whilst in the pod waiting to jump. This was made extra hard given the pod had a glass floor but i was determined not to look. Before i knew it they had attached all the bungy cords to feet whilst i was sat in what they call the dentists chair and then i waddled like a penguin out to the edge of the pod. They give you 2 count downs and if you don't jump on either they pull you back in and you loose your money, so being tight i had made up my mind i was going on 1 of the first count down. Still having not looked down on 1 i jumped, and when i finally saw how high it was and i had yet to fall there were a few choice words said, but the feeling whilst falling was amazing. Before i knew it i was back in the pod gloating at the fact i had jumped and seeing how nervous tom and fuzzy were now looking knowing they had to follow suite.

We then had a few quite days in Queenstown, saving ourselves for the nights out, and on the second to last day we went Mad Dog River Boarding. This was great fun, even though i nearly drowned several times. The biggest of the rapids we had to ride through was christened "Man Eater" and after going through it i can see why. It was baiscally a wall of water about 15 ft high, i seemed to be in it spinning around for an age before popping out of the other side, best hangover cure i have ever come across mind you.

The following day we left Queenstown for the 7 hr bus ride back to Christchurch, we had now done a full lap of the south island. We spent one night in Christchurch and one night in Kaikoura heading north to catch the ferry but did not get up to much given we had been there before and were all trying to save some money after a week in Queentown where money just seems to disapear.

We arrived in Wellington on 8th April and spent 3 nights there. Wellington is a pretty cool city. We went to the Museum of New Zealand, mainly becasue it was free and it was a good way to kill a few hours and the botanical gardens. Everyone bar me seemed to be ill on the second day so i just went for a wander and ended up sat on the beach watching the world go by, felt like one of the first times i was actually doing nothing so it was good to relax.

We have now moved onto Taupo and have been here 4 days ahead of heading north tomorrow. On the second day here a group of us wandered up to a thermal spa about 30 minutes walk from the hostel. It was really weird jumping into a stream which was really hot, like a hot bath. We also went in where the stream entered the river, that was really weird as well swimming in freezing cold water in the river up to the waterfall and rocks where the water was red hot. Having messed about jumping into the river and being in the spa for a few hours were went on a short walk up to Hucka falls, the falls were really spectacular and apparantly the water level is the lowest it has been for years so it must be even more impressive if they get some heavy rain.

Yesterday, myself and tom went on the Tangoriro Crossing, which is a 18km hike up and down Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings. The views were amazing, as you can probably tell by the number of photo's i took. It took the two of us just over 5 hrs to do the whole hike and our feet and legs were dead when we got back to the hostel last night, i didn't move more than a couple of feet from my bed once we got back.

Today the weather is rubbish, absolutely bouncing down, hence why i am updating my blog, but we can't complain because the weather has been really good for the majority of the time we have been here.

Will update you again soon once we have headed north through Auckland and the Bay of Islands.

Girtch