Trip: Grand Explorer (New Zealand) - 15 days
Date: 7th October - 24th October 2009
Tour Manager: Sol/Phil
Bus Driver: Trent/Eddie
Partner in Crime: Blake

Feel free to send any comments or questions to me at jodiellewellyn@gmail.com

I am stupidly tired this morning. Our flight didn't come in till midnight and by the time we caught the shuttle to the Mercure, checked in and got to bed it was almost 2.30am. To make matters worse I didn't fall asleep till around the 4 o'clock hour so this morning when my alarm went off, Blake and I emerged reluctantly from our cacoons. The first thing Blake says when she rolls over is "oh crap its overcast" but when I open the curtains its to pure blue skies! Yay! There may be clouds on either side, but hey, for now I see blue sky and that's good enough for me.

Today is a free day in Auckland. Originally we weren't going to have a free day, but because our flights were changed we ended up in Auckland a day early. So we venture out into the city with no plans whatsoever. The Mercure is really centrally located so once we're dressed and good to go we just start walking at random.

We ended up at the harbour port a street over and because the weather is so nice we sign up for the harbour cruise. The harbour cruise was nice. Somewhere in the middle of it the clouds came over, but we still managed to get some nice pictures.

After the cruise its about noon so we headed off to the Auckland Sky Tower to do our Sky Tower Jump. The jump was something Blake and I had never really thought about till we realised we had a free day in Auckland, so deciding to do it was kind of spontaneous. At the time we figured it would be a good way to kick off our adventure holiday - and it was! The Sky Tower Jump is... undescribable! Signing up for it and getting into the jump suit was just like "What the fuck are we doing?" Then going up in the elevator my nerves took over and then standing up on the platform I got all determined and was like, yep let's do this! It's a weird kind of situation because I knew I'd do it, I wasn't going to get out on the edge and chicken out or anything, so it was more nerve wracking then anything else.

The jump in itself is quite fun. Standing at the edge of the platform was the worst bit because its just so freaking high! 192meters up! There is nothing natural about throwing yourself off something like that! It was kind of scary, kind of exciting, kind of thrilling. Your mind is just like yep, lets do it and then BAM you throw yourself off a sky tower. I screamed a lot on the way down. The first thing Dom said when I hit the matt (on all fours of course) was "that was a very impressive scream." It apparently scared the heck out of Blake because I jumped first and after I jumped off she couldn't see me anymore, so all she could hear was me screaming on the way down.I didn't realise I had screamed so loud, but it was pretty much an obvious reaction for me - hell, I'd just thrown myself off the Auckland Sky Tower - that deserves a little noise. But it was great, once I got over the initial fall it was fun. I'd love to do it again actually.

After jumping we ventured up to the viewing platform to take some photos, then we walked over to Albert Park for a quick look around. Its beautiful there. Very green with heaps of beautiful old trees. We took heaps of photos, I was impressed by how green everything was. Blake and I are from Brisbane where everything is pretty much dry and brown, so we were excited :)

After lingering there for a while we walked to the Minus5 bar which was cool. A lot smaller than I expected but it was a fun novelty. Oddly enough we were the only two there, but that was okay cause we got some good photos. We also had a cocktail which was apparently stronger than I thought because after the Minus5 bar we headed to Westfield shops and as I'm walking around I realise I'm half tanked at 4pm. Very odd.

Back at the hotel, Blake and I spend our first night in Auckland sitting on our beds eating greasy Chinese food and watching the New Zealand equivalent of Home & Away. Lovely.

Today will be the day for awesome scenery, great fun and extreme adventure that take on new meanings! Meet your Contiki crew and view the beauty of Auckland’s famous harbour as we cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Heading towards the subtropical region of Northland, we’ll explore Parry Kauri Park before checking into our Resort in Paihia. In the evening get to know your fellow travellers during dinner.

Today had a slow start. I set the alarm for 8am... 8.30... 9... and then finally at 9.30am Blake and I rolled out of bed. Once we had breakfast, dressed and packed we just lounged around watching the New Zealand equivilant of Video Hits (except better) until 11.30am when we went down to reception to meet up with the contiki crew. After lining up and showing our passports, we loaded onto the bus and set off shortly after noon for the Bay of Islands.

We drove for about an hour and had a quick stop at Parry Kauri Park to take a quick walk through the forest and to hug a tree. Then we loaded back onto the bus to travel the final 2.5 hours to Paihia. We passed the time by playing speed dating. We did a fair few rotations until all the mountains and turns started to make me feel motion sick. Urgh. A quick note to all those travelling to New Zealand, take your motion sickness tablets. The roads are crazy. I took a motion sickness tablet every morning and I don't even get motion sick usually. Lots of people on the bus felt gross on certain driving days. Anyways, I made it through a couple of rotations of speed dating before going up the front to chat to Eddie the bus driver - or rather he did the chatting, I just sat there and tried not to look too green. Needless to say I was very happy to get off that freaking bus.

Once off the bus we had a little downtime where I collapsed on my bed (I shot-gun double woo!) and waited for my stomach to calm down. I'm rooming with Blake, Peta (who I had formally met via facebook) and Amanda. The room is great, nice and big with plenty of floor space which is awesome because everyone kept coming to visit, sprawling out on the floor and then leaving through the duration of our time there. I lazed around for a bit before heading out onto the verandah where a few people who weren't doing the afternoon optionals (excitor boat or parasailing) had congregated. I chatted with them for a while till the five of us doing parasailing all headed down to the water.

Parasailing was AWESOME! It was me, Blake, Peta, Annie, Leah and our bus driver Eddie doing it and we all had the best time just the six of us. It was a really great atmosphere on board. So what happened was we walked down to the jetty, got in the boat and I volunteered for Blake and I to go first, so I got into the harness and for some reason I'm wearing a dress, tights & leather jacket - only I would wear a leather jacket and Ray-Bans parasailing! But Parasailing in itself is so fun! The take off was slightly scary, just working out how it was all going to work, but being up there was gorgeous. It was an all round cloudy day (seems to be a theme) but it was cool. There was a slightly terrifying moment when the boat stopped to let us descend a little and because we didn't know what was happening Blake and I FREAKED OUT! Suddenly out of no where we're dropping towards the water and the rope is slackening and we're like holy shit. Meanwhile Blake is panicking thinking that something has gone wrong and I'm freaking out cause I'm wearing leather and really don't want to get wet. Haha. But it was okay, they just let us lose some height before eventually reeling us in like a fish onto the back of the boat. It was awesome fun! It was even fun on the boat whilst the other two duo's went up. I'm glad I didn't do the excitor boat cause the parasailing boat was speeding around so we definately hit two birds with one stone. Awesome experience all round!

After parasailing we came back to the lodge and a whole bunch of the girls on tour ended up in our room chatting till dinner at 7.30pm. Dinner was nice - we had a BBQ and salad for dinner and apple crumble with ice cream for desert. After dinner there's an option to head into town, not sure how many people from the tour went but I'm keen to catch up on some sleep so I'm in bed by midnight.

Random note - Pack your jackets along with your motion sickness tablets. Its cold here in the Bay.

A day of adventure and fun. The day is yours to enjoy the overwhelming beauty of the Bay of Islands. How about a Catamaran cruise through the “Hole-in-the-Rock”, maybe sail to a deserted island for lunch, perhaps travel along Ninety Mile Beach to Cape Reinga at “lands end”.

Today didn't get off to the best start. We all awoke at 8am to shitty weather. Lots of wind, lots of rain, really dark and gross :( But because its the second day on tour and we're optimistic we all get up and head down to breakfast anyways. Today is pretty much a full day of optionals. Blake and I chose horse riding but the Carino Day Sailing and Explore NZ were also popular choices. As soon as we got to breakfast we were told that Carino Day Sailing had been cancelled and the Explore NZ optional while still running was only going to do a 1/2 day instead of a full one. No word on horse riding at this point but by the time we finished breakfast I was pretty much over the idea. I didn't want to go out in the cold and rain, it wouldn't have been pleasant. So we opted out of horse riding in favour of doing some laundry, plus there was some good talk about taking the ferry to Russel for a look around.

After cancelling horse riding we sat around the breakfast room just chatting. At around this point the Excitor NZ people returned, their 1/2 day trip had even been cancelled. Crappy, crappy weather. At some stage instead of sitting around a whole group of us decide to go into town for a look around. A look around in Paihia is pretty much half a street of shops, but I tagged along anyways cause by this stage I had a load of washing on and needed to pass some time. So we went in for a little looksie before heading back and moving our clothes to the dryer and heading back again to meet up with everyone and take the ferry to Russel.

Russel is a little town just across the bay. Its nice there. It kind of reminded me of Port Royal in Pirates of the Carribbean. So that was cool. Once off the ferry we stopped and had a drink at this cute little pub. Some of the group had lunch, but it was only about 11am so I was good with a coke. After that we had a quick peak around the shops and then taking Amanda's lead (who had been checking out a map) we walked up to the Flagstaff Hill lookout.

It was a fair hike to the top. About 20 minutes but there is an awesome view so its worth it. At this point it was still pretty cloudy but it hadn't rained since we first ventured outside so that was good. The trip to Russel was a bit of a bonding activity that we wouldn't have had if we were all off doing our seperate optionals, so I'm glad it was a shitty day. Back down the hill we met up with another group of girls from the tour and I jumped ship to them because they were heading to lunch. After lunch we broke off once more and Blake, Annie, Amanda and I headed back to the mainland. By this stage there was even a bit of blue sky and sunshine - excellent.

The afternoon passed in a flurry of relaxing and people coming and going from the room. Tonight we have a dinner cruise which was good fun. Its an optional dinner that Phil arranged for us and I think everyone from the tour tagged along. Good food, good company, cute bartender, good photos. Excellent times all around. Most of the tour got pretty rowdy and headed into town, not sure where in the hell they went. Paihia isn't exactly tourist central, but I didn't stick around to find out, I'm still trying to catch up on sleep. Especially since tomorrow is an early one. Breakfast at 6.30am and we're leaving at 7.30am to head back into Auckland and pick up 15 new tour mates.

All in all for a day that started to shitty, it turned out pretty good.

We head south, stopping in Auckland for lunch before travelling through the lush Waikato farming region to Waitomo, home of magical limestone formations and sparkling Glow-worms. Tonight there’s the chance to meet the local characters.

I was sooooooo glad I didn't stay out late last night this morning. When my alarm went off at 6am I was very very relieved to have gotten a good nights sleep. Amanda and Peta stumbled in around the 2.30am hour, but I just kind of rolled over and went back to sleep. This morning is a bright and early one... well... not so bright, but definately early. Its beautiful this morning, typical that it would be perfectly clear the day we are leaving. Damn NZ weather. After breakfast this morning we all packed up and a very tired and hungover tour was on the bus by 7.30am.

Today is a very long driving day. Four hours to Auckland where we had a quick lunch stop and picked up new tour members, then we continued on from Auckland (with a new tour manager Sol and driver Trent) for another two hours to Waitomo. The trip passed pretty quick though, we got the contiki welcoming talk and Sol took us through all the North Island optionals. Once we did finally reach Waitomo it was straight off the bus and off to our Black Water Rafting optional at around 3pm.

Black Water Rafting was a totally bizarre and random experience! We were picked up from the lodge at 3pm (we were the first group of nine to go) and were taken to the BWR headquaters to change into our wetsuits. Wow, what an experience that was. Take my word for it, trying to slide your body into an already wet wetsuit is not fun. Especially when finally jamming yourself into this wetsuit you also have an under thermal shirt, a wet suit jacket, wet suit booties, gum boots and a helmet! It was an experience getting all that on to say the least. Be very prepared to be sloshing around in your boots too.

Once we were all dressed, before actually going into the caves we went to a section of stream where we grabbed out tubes and practiced jumping backwards off a high ledge as we would have to do the same in the caves off a waterfall. You basically jump off backwards and land on your tube... with water all up your nose and your contacts falling out of your eye balls haha. The water was icy but the wetsuits did a good job of keeping you warm, expect for my hands, my hands were numb. But you barely realise the cold once your in the caves. Your too busy trying to pay attention to a million other things - like stepping on the right rocks and not breaking your ankle!

After we were ready, we went down into the caves. In terms of being in the caves there is a good combination of walking and floating. I found the walking quite scary because your walking through anything from ankle to knee deep rushing water and you can't see the bottom sp your just stepping blindly on uneven rocks. Quite bizarre to get used to, you really have to trust yourself. The entire experience was a good combo of calm waters, rapids, walking, floating, jumping off waterfalls backwards... oh and awesome glow worms. All in all I thought it was amazing. A totally new and unique experience.

Afterwards there was hot showers and hot soup before they drove us back to the lodge. Waitomo in itself is a tiny town. Its basically centered around the caves. There is nothing here except the caves, the lodge we're staying at and a pub. We are clearly only here for black water rafting.

Tonight there is pizza dinner and we all met up with Sol to pay for our North Island optionals. Mine came to $693.00. Lovely. Tomorrow is another early start - 7.30 departure for Rotorua. Hopefully it's nice and sunny... and a bit warmer cause its chilly here.

Today has been the best day of the tour so far! It started with another chilly 6am start, but the skies are clear blue so the 7am breakfast didn't seem so bad. By 7.30am we're all on the bus for the short and sweet two hour drive to Rotorua. The time passed quick cause Sol had us all come to the front of the bus and introduce ourselves. I was pretty close to the front, so I got it all over and down with quickly which was awesome cause then all I had to do was sit back, relax and watch everyone else. It took the full two hours to get through the entire bus, so the trip passed by really quick.

Our first stop this morning is the Agrodome Sheep Show. Its an activity that's included in the tour so we were all dragged along for the experience. Oddly enough, I actually quite enjoyed it. It was pretty interesting and the guy presenting was funny. Basically you get to see a whole bunch of different sheep, see one shorn, see a cow milked and watch some working dogs round up a flock of ducks. After the show you go outside and see a brief demonstration with the working dogs. I personally thought the whole thing was pretty entertaining. Plus its included in the tour so you may as well make the most of it. After the Agrodome we headed straight down the road for Zorbing!

Zorbing was awesome fun! I did the Zydro Zorb which is where they toss you in one of the zorbs with a bucket of warm water and roll you down the hill. It was one of the most bizarre and disorientating experiences ever because you 'super man' into this puddle of warm water and you can't see a thing because the plastic is so thick and next thing you know your sliding all over the place with no clue of what's up or down or whether your landing on your butt or your head. I didn't actually expect it to be so crazy. I thought I'd move around a little, but I was sliding all over that freaking zorb! It was awesome fun. I'm really glad I got the Zorb Pak too - the pack comes with a t-shirt, shorts, towel and a bag to put it all in. It was so convenient because you get absolutely saturated! Plus you get a nice new shirt and pair of shorts to take home. Very glad I invested in that.

I went up in the first zorbing group, so once I was done I got changed and sat around with the rest of the group and watched everyone else roll down the hill and get 'birthed'. Birthed is a term Sol uses to describe the process of getting out of the zorb. Because what happens is that unzip the little hole, roll the zob over and then all the water comes gushing out followed by the person. Hence the birthing haha. I amused myself by calling out "It's a baby boy!" a couple of times.

After everyone was done zorbing we were driven to the Rotorua Skyline where 90% of the tour took the gondola up for lunch and luging. The general idea was to take the gondola up and have some lunch before luging. But as soon as we got off the gondola Leah and I sighted the Sky Swing and knew we had to do it :) So we bought our tickets and Burney hovered with us to take some photos. The swing was kinda hilarious. Leah and I had the BEST TIME on it. We had a ball. You get into this three seater and they strap you in, then pull you right up the top in preparation for the release. But when you get to the top you actually have to release it yourself. So as we're going up I'm like, Leah you can pull the rope and she's like cool. But then we get to the top and we're really high with all our body weight on our harnesses cause we're tipped forwards and Leah's like "I can't do it, you're gonna have to do it". Meanwhile I'm gripping my seat like a vice so I'm like no way I can't do it and she's like I seriously can't do it you have to. So I'm like fuck, and pull the freaking cord and BAM we're released and swinging over Rotorua. It was awesome! Great views. And once the initial swing was over we were laughing our arses off! Awesome fun.

After doing the sky swing we had a quick lunch before heading to the luge tracks. Luging was fun. I didn't realise how hard it would be on my hands and arms though. Its tough to put on the break and the vibrations put a lot of pressure on your hands. But the two tracks we did were fun. Luckily we didn't want to do a third circuit because we wouldn't have had time - aside from the luging there is a very slow process of lifts and lines.

We were picked up from the Skyline at 2.45pm, picked up some people in town and did a short tour of Rotorua before heading to the hotel and our home for the evening. The hotel we're staying at here is really nice. The room is a good size, really modern looking and most importantly the shower is AMAZING. First good shower of the trip! To pass the afternoon Blake, Leah and I set off to the local grocery store to stock up on some snacks. Then we left Leah at the gift store to go off and do some exploring. Rotorua is a really beautiful town - the views from the skyline were incredible and the town is really manicured with lots of flowers, shrubs, trees and greenery... but... Rotorua STINKS! The entire town smells like sulphur from the hot springs and urgh it is so bad. Prior to reaching Rotorua I entertained the idea of visiting the Polynesian Spa and soaking in the hot springs... but they smell so bad! The mere idea of soaking in that smell makes my skin crawl, so that's one activity I'll be skipping tonight.

After exploring and relaxing the afternoon away, those of us doing the Hangi Concert came together for that. I really enjoyed it. I didn't think that I would because I'm here in New Zealand for the crazy stuff more so than the cultural stuff, but I thought it was great. Good food and the entertainment was excellent. I was all around impressed. Excellent conclusion to an excellent day!

We all got to sleep in today! Till 7am! Woo! After rolling out of bed, packing our stuff and getting ready we went to breakfast. Breakfast was good this morning - a nice big buffet with plenty of options. This place has been my favourite accomodation so far - pity we are only here one night. By around 9am we were on the bus and on our way to Taupo.

The trip to Taupo is only 45minutes but we made a couple of stops along the way. Our first stop was at a mud pool - smelly, bubbly mud. I thought it was pretty cool. The next two stops were at the Huka Falls and then because we were running ahead on schedule we also stopped at a lookout over Lake Taupo. After those stops we dropped those doing Rock'n'Ropes at their optional and dropped those doing the Huka Jet at their optional then the rest of us were dropped in town to pass the time till 1.45pm when we would be picked up to do the Taupo bungy. We passed the time in town browsing the shops for costumes because tonight we have a dinner cruise and the theme is "P". So we walked around, bought costumes, ate, took photos and sat in the park till we were free to hop on the bus and head to Taupo bungy. There was ten of us doing the bungy but most of the tour came to watch, I suppose everyone was sick of town by this stage.

At Taupo bungy we arrived, filled out some forms and then it was pretty much straight up to the platform. I was pretty nervous. Even though I'd done the Auckland Sky Tower I was still freaking out a little. But the actual bungy was cool. It went hell fast and once I was in the little boat down the bottom I found the entire experience hard to process because it went so quick. The entire time I was just running on auto pilot. But I liked it. Its different to the sky tower jumo because you drop hell fast. Kind of strains your ankles a bit too. But it was fun and I was glad I did it. The worst part though is that once you've done the bungy you have to walk all the way back to the freaking top! Its a long walk. That sucked.

Tonight there is an optional dinner cruise. Here's something to consider when your deciding whether or not to do it - its basically a party cruise. Cheap drinks, loud cheesy music, dancing and a relatively average meal for the price. If your not a big drinker or dancer then don't do this optional. I'm not really in New Zealand to drink and party, I'm here to do all the adventure activities, so I really didn't like being stuck on a boat for four hours whilst Grease blared in the background.

Today is a big driving day. We departed Taupo at 9am and drove all the way to Wellington. The road to Wellington is gorgeous, every five or ten minutes the scenery seemed to change - flat to mountains, green to brown, blue skies to clouds, sunshine to rain. We even had a quick stop to play in the snow on the side of the road. It was all over the place weather wise too, though that seems to be a common trend here in NZ. So we left at 9am, and taking into account a 45minute lunch stop we arrived in Wellington at 2.30-3pm. We did a quick driving tour of the city (Mount Victoria in particular) and then headed back to the city and our home for the next two nights.

We had the afternoon free. Nothing planned till 7.15pm when we had our optional dinner at the Blend Bar. To pass the time Blake, Leah and I went for a walk about Wellington. Holy shit it is a windy city! Whoa! It was ridiculous. The worst thing was that the wind made the temperature feel so much cooler. I think today has been the coldest day of the tour so far - so glad I have my leather jacket and pashmina scarves! So we walked about randomly, got some food (I was craving pasta but somehow settled for ice cream and Cheetos) then made our way down to the water and in a bid to try and warm up we ended up at the Te Papa Museum. The museum is pretty cool. The gift store is good - I bought new earings since I lost one of mine whilst Black Water Rafting. After browsing the gift store we cruised through the museum, its kind of a natural history museum of sorts, basic as far as museums go, but it passed the afternoon especially when you have a load of washing on and need to kill some time between the cycles.

Dinner tonight is at the Blend Bar and it is amazing value! $29 and you get a three course meal and free drink! Way better value than the Taupo cruise. Most people left the bar as soon as dinner was over cause people are starting to get sick with the contiki cough, but the atmosphere was good at the bar for those who wanted to stay out later.

I woke up with a stuffy nose and sore throat - I blame Leah and Sam - spending the night in a room with two people coughing is probably not the best way to stay healthy. But luckily the sickness seems to disappear throughout the day. So all is good.

Today in Wellington is a day of optionals, or if you're not doing those then a day to relax in the city. Blake and I and a whole bunch of others from the group signed up for Quad Biking! We were picked up at 9am and drove the 50minutes to the location. Once we were there we were suited up in water proof pants, jacket, gloves, boots and helmet. Very attractive :) Once we were all ready there was a quick run down on all the gears and buttons on the bike and then we were on our way. Quad biking is fun, it was a bit odd at first because your going through mud and water and its bumpy and your bike is leaning all over the place. It took me a while to trust that my bike wasn't going to fall over side ways, but once I trusted the bike I had a really good time. Quad Biking is something I'd like to do for fun in general.

A quick note about the quad biking optional - I probably wouldn't do it if you quad bike a lot at home, because you can only really go as fast as the person in front of you, and the person in front of them and so on and so forth. There were a lot of stops for photos and it was a bit frustrating at times because you just wanted to start speeding along the tracks and you can't. There is an opportunity towards the end to really start speeding along - but I think if you had quad biked a lot before it would be a bit annoying. But I've never done it before so I thought it was awesome.

This afternoon Blake and I ended up walking and walking trying to decide where to eat. It was only when it started to rain that we settled on a random little Thai place in a food court. We sat there for a while being lazy and I picked up some trashy holiday reading from the book store before hurrying back through the rain to the hotel. Damn Wellington weather. Oddly enough, when we get back to the hotel we end up out in the rain again on a quest for hoodies with Annie. Tonight we have to fend for ourselves so a whole bunch of us end up at an Italian joint and then at a cute bar called Hope Bro's that serves really good cocktails.

We travelled all day today to get to Christchurch. 8.30am-6pm were pretty much travelling hours. Today was a really early morning - it went something like this:
6.00 - alarm goes off
6.45 - bags to bus
7.00 - breakfast
7.30 - bus to the interislander ferry
8.30 - ferry to south island departs
The ferry ride was about three hours. I enjoyed it. I sat up the top on deck reading until it started to get too windy and cold, then I went downstairs for a bit and kind of alternated between the two till we docked and transferred back onto the bus. But the views on the way in the the south island were gorgeous! The weather really cleared up along the way too so the water was a stunning aqua blue.

Once back on the bus it was a nice long drive to Christchurch. We passed most of it by listening to Sol talk about the South Island optionals. We also stopped for lunch and to see some seals. It was one of the longer drives but the scenery was beautiful so it passed quickly.

Tonight we're staying at Bealey's and having dinner at the pub next door. Dinner was awesome, I had a vegetarian pasta which was something a little different to all the meat we've been eating on tour. I swear I'm going vegan as soon as I get home haha. Tonight we also got to meet a whole stack of new people who are joining the tour. Its so strange how people keep coming and going all the time. It makes it hard to get to know people, especially when everyone is always out and about doing their own optionals.

Today turned into another long driving day. We hit the road at 8.30am for our long and rainy drive to Franz Josef. There were a couple of stops along the way - lunch, the Jade Factory and some place in Ross to go panning for gold. The gold place was boring as, a couple of tour members went panning, I preferred to keep my $8. At the Jade Factory I bought a nice necklace though. Other than that it was just driving, driving and more driving. It rained practically all day too, hopefully it will rain itself out for our journey up Fox Glacier tomorrow.

Accomodation tonight is basic. First set of bunk beds of the tour. But that's okay cause I'm rooming with Blake, Amanda and Annie and we make a good team. Dinner tonight is at 7pm - inbetween arriving and dinner I checked my email and read a little. We've all been pretty mellow in our downtime. The past couple have days have been on the slow side - just travel days really, the south island is definately more set apart than the north. But that's okay because we get to Queenstown tomorrow afternoon and it should be crazy there!

This morning was an excessively early morning! Up at 5.45, bags to bus at 6.15, breakfast at 6.30 and we were all on the bus at a bright and early 7am. Very early morning and to make matters even worse it was a shitty morning. Very rainy and dark. Sol warned us pretty much as soon as we got on the bus that there was a very good chance that all the helicopter optionals at Fox Glacier would be cancelled. I had signed up for the Heli Hike so that included me. But apparently the actual hike would run regardless of the weather so we could transfer to that if we wanted. I personally didn't feel like hiking up 400 steps in the rain, so when we reached Fox about 30minutes later I opted to stay in town, read and relax whilst others did the hike. I also wanted to stay because there was a chance the weather could clear and we could go up for scenic flights.

So we just kind of hung around all morning at the Fox Glacier cafe. Thankfully our waiting paid off because at around 11am the weather cleared enough for us to go up in the helicopter and land! Yay! I'd never been in a helicopter before so I loved the experience. We flew right over the glacier and landed up the top in the snow where we got out and had the chance to look around, take some pictures and play in the ankle deep snow before getting back into the helicopter. I was excited because the snow was light and fluffy, I've only ever seen icy snow before so it was cool to see real snow. Apparently it had only fallen the night before. But it was beautiful up there - very bright, very beautiful. I took heaps of photos and videos. Mainly I was just glad I got the chance to do it because otherwise I would have been sitting around all morning. The hike got good reviews from those who did it, but everyone came back exhausted. Apparently there was like 800 steps to climb - crazy. The only bad thing about the helicopter was the flight back - holy shit descending hurt my ears! It was awful, I got out of the helicopter and couldn't hear a thing. Very odd.

We left Fox around 12.30pm for Queenstown. Its about a 5-6 hour drive. 6 hours seems to be the magic travelling number in the South Island. So today was another long one with a couple of stops along the way. As always the scenery was spectacular! As always the weather was all over the place - it rained, it cleared, blue skies, grey skies. The weather is so fucking random! You can be standing at a rest stop and look to the right to see bright blue skies, then you look to your left and see black storm clouds rolling in. Its so random! Its good in a way though because the rain always seems to roll in and out relatively quickly so there are more opportunities to fit in optionals. I'm sad I didn't get to do the Heli Hike, but I'm pretty happy with the helicopter and landing. Totally worth it.

We arrived in Queenstown just in time to change and head up to our optional dinner at the Skyline Restaurant. Its basically a big buffet where you eat too much, feel all full and sleepy and then roll back to Queenstown Lodge with a food baby in your stomach.

Sky diving was cancelled this morning :( Stupid weather. Its weird because on the one hand I'm really sad, but on the other I've done so many amazing things here in NZ so its not really a huge deal. Plus I have a million other things to do whilst I'm here. My Queenstown agenda is:

Sunday 8.15am - Skydiving
Sunday 12.45am - Nevis Bungy
Monday 8.05am - White Water Rafting
Monday 1.45pm - Canyon Swinging
Monday 6.20pm - Ledge Bungy
Tuesday 9.00am - Kawarau Bridge Bungy

So today started at 7am when we got up, got dressed, had breakfast and headed to reception for our 8.15am pickup. At 8am Sol came and told us it was cancelled. That wasn't really surprising - it was raining and really cloudy. But it kind of worked out okay because the six of us doing skydiving at 8.15am were also doing the Nevis at 12.45am so we got Sol to switch the Nevis to the morning. That way if the weather cleared we could still skydive in the afternoon. So we all got in a taxi and headed into town to the AJ Hackett bungy office. We weren't due to leave till 9.30am so we all passed the time on the free internet that is there. We all managed to freak out a bit too cause the Nevis bungy is epic. 134meters and the highest bungy in NZ! So we passed the time till 9.30 when we travelled the 50 minutes to the Nevis Bungy site.

The Nevis Bungy... okay... wow... it was... insane! I was kinda terrified because its just so freaking high! Its literally a little cable car sitting in the middle of a gorge! Its not pretty. And I was freaking out! I was so nervous, my entire body was shaking. I was literally terrified to jump. And its always weird because I know I'll do it. I wasn't going to get to the edge and chicken out, but despite that confidence its always scary to take that plunge. The Nevis is different to the Taupo Bungy because instead of getting lowered into a little boat, you actually have to pull a cord to release your ankles and then your winched back up in your harness. Quite good really because you freak out the entire way down and then relax and take it all in on the way back up. Back in the cable car after the jump my entire body was shaking! I felt like I was going to cry because there was just so much emotion running through my body - terror, excitement, relief, adrenaline - it was nuts! Crazy crazy cocktail of emotions. It took me awhile to come down from the high. Completely and utterly nuts!

After the bungy we watched and selected our DVD/prints, then it was back into the mini van for our trip back to town. We got back around noon and headed straight to Ferg Burger to celebrate being alive. After that we proceeded to linger around town waiting to see whether sky diving would go ahead or not. It was hard to tell because the weather had cleared but there was still a lot of low clouds over the moutains. We lingered till about 2.30pm when we ran into Sol who confirmed it was all cancelled. So we walked (never fucking again! That hill was brutal!) back to Queenstown lodge to relax the afternoon and night away. Tonight there is the option to head into town to the Minus5 bar, but Blake and I opted to give it a miss since we had already been there and done that in Auckland.

There's been something that's been bothering me over the course of the trip. I've been really surprised by it. And its how many people on the tour came to New Zealand with no intention of doing any of the adventure activities. Blake and I have been talking about it quite a bit and we're endlessly confused by it because isn't all the adventure stuff what you come to New Zealand for? Why come to New Zealand if your not going to bungy jump or skydive - this place is famous for it! I came home from all my activities today and there were tour mates still sitting around in their pyjamas. I was just like... wtf? We're in Queenstown! I just find that so hard to fathom because adventure is what we came for so I assumed everyone else would be on the same page. Especially on this tour because its practically structured around the optionals - Trent and Sol take us to all these different towns and the only reason to go there is for the actvities they present. Like Waitomo for Black Water Rafting or Fox Glacier for the flights... there is literally no other reason to be there except for the activities. I also find it weird when tomorrow for example, the whole tour is going to the Kawarau Bridge Bungy on the way to Milford Sound. The whole tour is going and only 7 of us are jumping... why not just jump if your there? I don't get it. Just can't seem to wrap my head around the concept.

Anyways. Rant over. Moving on...

So today started nice and early with me bouncing out of bed at 6.45-7. I got dressed and was one of the first to breakfast. I ate and then came back to the room to find Annie and Amanda struggling out of bed and Blake still in bed. Where in the world is my energy coming from? I have no idea. We headed up to recpetion then for our 8.05am pick up to go White Water Rafting.

White Water Rafting was awesome! I have never laughed so hard in my life! So what happened was the shuttle picked us up and took us down to the office where we had a quick talk before re-boarding the shuttle and travelling the 10 minutes to the rafting base. Once there we changed into our rafting gear - wet suit, wet suit vest, wet suit jacket, red water proof over shirt, life vest, helmet, gloves, booties and boots. Yep... its a lot. But it keeps you really warm. And as a bonus they were dry! So the whole kit was much easier to get into. After we were all ready we loaded back into the shuttle and it was about a 40minute drive on this treacherous road to the base of the Shotover river where rafting began. The road to the Shotover River is so bizarre, its literally this little dirt road winding up and down the edge of the mountain. Very windey, very long way down. The journey passed pretty quick, we were given a mini safety talk and just chatted about the area and its history in gold mining.

Once we were safely at the bottom we all piled out of the van and the real safety talk began. Its pretty straight forward, just what to do if you fall out of the raft or if the raft flips etc. Then we were divided into teams. I was in a raft with Annie, Amanda, Denise, Kain and Andy - GO TEAM! The actual trip down the river was awesome - its about an hour to an hour and a half on the water. Its a really good combination of easy patches and rough patches. It was hilarious because at one point Amanda decides she's getting hot in her wetsuit so at some stage when we drift off to the side of the river to wait for the other boats she gets into the water for a mini swim. Which was all fine until we had to pull her back into the boat. Back on dry land they had shown us how to get someone back into the raft if they fall out, which is basically yanking them back in my their life vest. Easier said than done because you should have seen Annie and I trying to get Amanda back in to the freaking raft. It was hilarious and because your laughing you have no strength in your arms, so Amanda is half in and half our of the raft and we're laughing our arses off at her. So eventually we get her into the boat and she's sprawled out in Annie's crutch and she's like "Fuck, I'd be dead if I relied on you two!" It was fucking hilarious! The whole trip was, every rapid we were laughing. The very last rapid was the worst, I swear our boat almost tipped! I was so close to falling out, I was literally half out of the boat holding on with one hand and had to climb back in. It was nuts! But I didn't fall out. Yay! It was awesome all round - I loved White Water Rafting.

After rafting we headed back into town where had some Mexican food and passed the time till 1.45pm when we were due to go Canyon Swinging. Canyon Swinging was cool. I went backwards and forwards. I wasn't going to go backwards but somehow the guys there talked me into it. Going backwards was cool, going forwards was scary, not because I was going forwards but because the guys had me standing on the ledge so long riling me up. They fuck with your mind! If you were allowed to just walk up to the edge, prepare yourself and jump then it would be fine, but the guys tease you by leaning you out over the edge, mock pushing you and just generally being all round amazing arse holes. So by the time your actually allowed to jump off you're totally rattled. But it was cool. Really good fun. I wasn't even going to do Canyon Swinging originally, but Sol totally sold it when he was explaining the south island optionals.

After Canyon Swinging we were taken back into town and the MadDog River Boarding guys were nice enough to give us a lift back to Queenstown Lodge. At Queenstown Lodge I passed the two hours or so because Amanda and I headed back into town to take the gondola up to the the Ledge Bungy. What can I say about the Ledge Bungy... it was fucking freezing up there! A cold snap suddenly came over whilst we were there and it was sooooo cold! It even started to snow! I don't think I've ever been in weather that cold before.

The Ledge Bungy in itself was cool. By this point I've thrown myself off so many things I'm like "yep, cool, lets do this!" I ran and jumped off the ledge. It was awesome. I was actually surprised at how bouncy the Ledge bungy is! It was crazy, way bouncier than anything else. I wasn't expecting it, especially after Canyon Swinging which is really smooth. The Ledge is weird too because in comparison to the Nevis it has a really short fall, but because its set so high up over Queenstown, it actually feels a lot higher. I was actually kinda nervous dangling there waiting to be winched up. As far as bungy's go, it was on the scary side. A couple of girls in the group thought it was scarier than the Nevis! I didn't think so, but it was definately on the scary side. The freezing cold didn't really help things, I swear my hands were about to go numb and fall off!

After the Ledge we headed back to town (freezing our butts off!) and took the 8pm shuttle back to the lodge where we had pizza and caught up on everyone's days. Tomorrow is an early morning for me - 12 of us are going to give skydiving one last go before we leave Queenstown. If we do go skydiving I won't be able to do my last bungy of the thilogy (Kawarau Bridge), but that's okay because skydiving takes priority for me. To be able to skydive would be an awesome end to my time here in Queenstown and an awesome end to all my optionals :)

Okay. Getting ahead of myself in terms of the day, but I'm excited and need to get this out - MILFORD SOUND IS SPECTACULAR! It is absolutely stunning! The water is so blue and the mountains are huge! I just went on a mini speed boat trip and saw penguins, seals and the most beautiful waterfall called Stirling Falls. Incredible place.

Anyways, getting back on track. Today started very early. I got up just before 6am because those of us doing skydiving needed to have our bags to the bus at 6.50am. Apparently Trent was going to get a call at 7am to let us know if it was going ahead and then we would be picked up by the nZone shuttle at 7.20am. But it was a bit random because Trent kind of disappeared and never really let us know so we all had breakfast and just waited around reception for Trent to let us know one way or another... so when the nZone shuttle pulled up at 7.20am, we were all like "holy shit!" Janelle and I were literally in sync with our holy shits, its kind of funny in retrospect, but at the time we were all freaking out because we were finally getting somewhere with our skydiving. There were people who had been waiting around Queenstown Lodge for the last two days trying to do it, so it was an exciting moment.

So we all loaded into the van, headed to head office, paid our jump fees and then headed off to the jump site which is about 20 minutes away. At the jump site (its freezing cold) Janelle, Any and I are taken into the hanger first to suit up for our dive. We are introduced to our tandem masters who I immediately felt safe with - it was a really bizarres instant reaction. I thought it was nice too how the guy whose strapping himself to your back was the one to put your harness on. Aw. So Janelle, Andy and I are all dressed and ready to go when suddenly the three guys jumping before us are suddenly back on the ground because its too cloudy. Apparently they got 1000feet up in the plane then had to come back down. So everything is delayed about half an hour to see if things can clear up. So we basically just hung around the hanger by the big industrial heater waiting to hear. It hit 9am and unfortunately everything was delayed once more to midday :( Which means us contiki-folk couldn't stick around because we were due to head to Milford Sound at about 11.30am. I was extra annoyed because I'd given up my final bungy (already paid for!) to do skydiving, so that sucked when we couldn't go up. Anyways, but the nZone people were really nice, they took us back into town to get our refunds and then drive us all out to Kawarau Bridge to meet up with the rest of the group, which I thought was nice.

At Kawarau Bridge I had a stroke of good luck cause there was time to do my final bungy! YAY! Everyone else had already done theres, but Sol said I had time to do mine because they were waiting on Trent (who had to go to police station cause he got into some fight at Ferg Burger the night before or something). He has a nice black eye for his efforts too... hmm. No idea what went on, so I won't speculate.

Kawarau Bridge bungy is good. I could totally tell it was my forth bungy though because I had no fear at all. I just got to the edge and went. Easy done :) I still screamed a bit (I was plunging towards Earth!) but it was good fun, and the walk back up afterwards was no where near as bad as Taupo. I think I have officially exhausted the bungy's in New Zealand. - Taupo
- Nevis
- Ledge
- Kawarau
Pretty good effort by me :) And I completed the Queenstown thrillogy! YAY! My conclusive thoughts... the Nevis was the scariest. The Ledge was the most surprising. Kawarau and Taupo were both kind of similar - both over water, by your ankles, similar heights. I liked them both equally. The Ledge was cool because you could run and jump too. All in all... I am the bungy queen!

After my bungy I grabbed my DVD and pictures and hurried to the bus for us to officially leave Queenstown! Queenstown is cool (depsite the shitty non-bungy-friendly weather). Its such a funny little town because instead of having cafes and clothing stores on its main street, it has all its adventure activity offices. You could spend a lot of time in Queenstown, there is just so much to do there! Its such a resort town too, there are hotels, apartments, hostels and units EVERYWHERE! I didn't think it was as pretty as some other places, its a lot browner despite its high rainfall and the mountains are basically rock and there isn't enough top soil for anything to grow. But its an awesome place, its probably one of the only places I'd love to come back to for a holiday because there is just so much stuff to do. I'd love to come back and do a snow season, that would be cool. Its definately a place to explore - if you have the money to really keep your options open of course.

Anyways, so after rushing around pretty much all morning it was back to the bus for our four hour drive to Milford Sound. We had a couple of stops along the way: one for lunch, a couple of scenic stops and a toilet break. The road to Milford Sound is really pretty. Especially the last half when your right up against the mountains. Spectacular. It was especially beautiful considering by this stage we had clear blue skies.

Once we reached Milford Sound we got off the bus with our overnight bags and boarded the Milford Mariner aka. our home for the evening. Once on board we all headed to the main deck for the welcoming talk, then after dumping our stuff we made our way onto the top deck where I proceeded to fill my memory card with pictures and videos. I got a tad snap happy which was all fine until I realised my spare memory cards were in my suitcase back on the bus on land :( But it was a good atmosphere on deck, cold but fun. We sailed for a bit then docked in a little cove for the evening. Once anchor was dropped we had the opportunity to do a couple of activities - swimming, kyaking and speed boating. I opted to go on the boat trip cause there was no way I was getting in that freezing water (at least not without a million layers white-water-rafting-style).

The boat ride was amazing. The Sound is gorgeous. So magestic. Seeing the penguin there was cool, it was amazing to see one in the wild. It was a total highlight for me - odd that the simplest things can be so incredible. The seals were cool too, there were heaps of them on the rocks and one even got into the water as we watched and started rolling in the lapping waves on the rocks. He looked like he was having a great time haha.

After dinner I hung around with everyone till dinner which was buffet style. By the end I had a food baby and retreated to bed. Blake's eyes are both bloodshot, she's in the sickness wars. Here's hoping I don't get it, only two days left on tour, I'm sure I can keep it at bay.

I was so exhausted all morning today. I had an amazing sleep on the boat, I swear when my alarm went off at 6.45am I could have slept for another couple of days. So I was pretty sluggish trying to get up to breakfast by 7am. I was so sluggish in fact that once I was done eating and had a quick peak as the Tasman sea I went back to bed till we docked at 9am. Urgh, so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open. This is what happens in the aftermath of Queenstown I suppose. It didn't really matter because today is a huge driving day. So I just put on my ipod and dozed on the bus. We had a couple of stops: one for lunch, another to drop some people at Queenstown airport and a couple of other short toilet breaks. Other than that we just drove all day to our home for the night: Lake Ohau.

The journey was a nice scenic one (as most of the South Island seems to be) at one point it felt like we were driving on a road surrounded by giant sand castles. The scenery in the south is so random, at one point everything will be bright green and at another everything will be rocky, browna and infertile. Very random.

Lake Ohau is pretty much a lodge in the middle of nowhere. The lake in itself is gorgeous. Its this bright neon blue/green colour. Its literally ice blue. Its so bright. I've never seen anything like it. But other than the lake, lodge and some mountains - its pretty much deserted.

Dinner tonight is at 6.30pm and then there's a toga party going on in the bar. I think I'll give it a miss, I'm not feeling fantastic today. I can't seem to shake this exhaustion. Tomorrow is the final day on tour and consists of a long drive back to Christchurch. Tomorrow night we're all going to a rugby game and then Blake and I have one free day in Christchurch before heading home. I'm kind of looking forward to getting home. That always seems to be the way with travel. I always miss my bed, shower and having all my possessions around me. Plus your body always tends to go haywire when you travel so its nice to return to your own little routine. I definately miss my lovely sunny warm Sunshine Coast weather, the weather here is too random - its all over the place, its cloudy, it rains, it clears, the sun comes out, its hot, its freezing, its windy. Its so random! I couldn't handle it if I lived here, though I would love to spend a couple of months in Queenstown. That place was going off!

So this evening I took it pretty easy. I ended up sitting in the lodge's sitting room chatting with a couple of tour members for a fairly long time, before having a catch up session with Blake and talking about all our favourite and least favourite parts of the tour.

Today consisted of a nice long drive into Christchurch. Woke up this morning to the most gorgeous weather! Bright blue clear skies - a rarity in NZ :) The weather was perfect because the drive back to Christchurch was punctuated with some stops at all the local lakes. Lake Ohau, Lake Tekapo... couple of others I can't remember the names of, but they are stunning! The water is bright neon turquoise. According to Sol its that colour because the rain/snow run off the mountains and collect all the minerals on the way down and then run into the lakes. Whatever the reason, its stunning, some of my favourite scenery in the South Island.

Other than that the drive into Christchurch was relatively uninteresting. Back in town Blake and I took a taxi to the YHA aka. our home for the next two nights. Its pretty basic, but has everything we need. Once we dropped off our luggage and piled on some warmer clothes we wandered into the center of town to have some dinner, then at 5.30pm those of us not staying at Bealey's were picked up at the Base hostel for a final group gathering at the rugby. About 80% of the tour went. It was good, but a lot of us left at half time because it was too fucking rainy and cold. Blake and I ended up walking the 20minutes back to town. I kind of enjoyed the walk even though it was dark, cold and spitting with rain. It was kind of refreshing in an odd kind of way. All in all it was the awesome end to an awesome tour!