new zealand

ok so this post is going pretty long so what im going to do is break up into sections
1. queenstown --> bungie, sky dive, speed boat.... anything Xtreme
2. mt. cook---> really boring
3. chirstchurch


1. QUEENSTOWN

ok so the morning after the glacier hike we got on the bus and drove to queenstown. it was something like a 5 hour drive, some pretty cool scenery and all that along the way. once we got there, we had the rest of the afternoon free. first thing we did was to check into the hostel, base discovery lodge. right after that we signed up for our free extreme day trip, the choices were: sky diving, white water rafting, some sort of white water buggie boarding, a canyon swing, and i think a few other things. of course i chose to sky dive, but ill get to that later. right across the street from the hostel was the best burger place i have ever been to, Fergburger. so the game plan was to go there for the first meal but it was way too crowded so myself and a few others ventured off and ended up at this place called surreal. I had an amazing piece of lamb and mashed potatoes... it was fabulous.

ill skip the events of the night and get right to the next morning. i probably woke up two or three times that night because i was planning on jumping off the second highest bungee jump in the world the next morning. morning finally came, and i was ready to go... but very nervous. we got things started off with a jet boat ride through some body of water, the guy drove the boat within 1 or 2 feet from the rock walls, got the adrenaline going. it was really cool, did some 360s, some crazy things. but that was nothing compared to what i was about to do. so we get back to the hostel and wait for our bus to the bungee. they had videos playing of the different bungees that they offered, and the one we were doing (the nevis) was by far the scariest. anyway so the bus finally came, but of course it was like a 45 minute drive. so of course all the anticipation continued, which made it all so much more stressful. in order to try to calm us down the driver had some calming music (bob marley, and other similar things). i just tried to sleep to make the time pass, that did not work. as we get there we drive up this really really steep hill/mountain (?) and get a glimpse of the bungee... it looked pretty high up and we were not really that close to it. so we finally got there and right away got strapped into harnesses and got weighed in. the way the jump order was figured out was by weight, heaviest to lightest. so being the stalky man that i am i was the 4th to go. im getting a head of myself. so we get everything ready and have to take this trolley ride over to the platform that we were jumping off. that was very unnerving, we were literally in a little cage traveling fairly fast over nothing but a canyon that was probably over 500 feet deep. so we get to the platform and get all strapped in with leg gear and what not. and then one at a time we jump off. i finally can upload pics so there will be plenty to see of this adventure. so my turn came up and i got all strapped in and waddled over to the edge, took a deep deep breath, looked back, looked around and just jumped. i feel for 7 seconds and dropped 134 meters, which is something like 440 feet. it was amazing. i would and will do it again for sure.

after that i felt like i could do anything, which probably helped with the whole sky diving thing. but that was for the next day. after the bungee we went back to the hostel and me and my buddy dave went to fergburger, had a well deserved cold beer and ate the best burger i have every had. then we went to this outdoor luge thing... it was pretty cool. to say the least i was wiped, so i took a nap before dinner, and then we went on a bar crawl, 7 bars throughout the town and had a good time. we were at each place for 45 minutes so we got a very quick idea of the different places to go.

next morning was skydive day! very excited after the bungee the day before, felt pretty invincible. so we get to the jump site and the nervs start to kick in. finally its my turn, along with dave and dan, to get our gear on. they gave us a jump suit (it was a hot day so that suit was pretty warm), a hat, goggles, and gloves. the jump was tandum, so we all jumped with a pro strapped to our backs, and if you ordered a dvd/pics another guy with a camera on his helmet. so there were me, dave, dan, our 3 pros, and 2 camera men (dan didnt order anything) iin this TINY plane. it took about 15 minutes to get up to 12,000 feet which is the height that we jumped from. it was very high. anyway so the way the jumping process works is you sit with you legs outside the plane, wrap your legs around this bar outside the plane, and the pro rocks back twice and on the third time you are falling at about 120 mph toward the ground. the free fall was 45 seconds and then when the shoot opened it was like 4-5 minutes to the ground. amazing. easily the single best thing i have ever done.

ok im getting a little tired of writing so im going to get a little less detailed.

2. MT. COOK

this place was really really boring. the hostel we stayed at was in the middle of this moutain, and there was absolutely nothing to do. there was a self guided optional hike that i went on, it was cool but nothign amazing. so that is pretty much all we did, but we did have a very good dinner, buffeet (sp) sytyle goodness.

3. CHIRSTCHURCH

this place was a legit city. we stayed at the same chain of hostels as we did in Queenstown (base). this was our last day in NZ, and we had a free day. there was a rugby game that night that we all went to, which was really fun. we had great seats and it got really roudy. we sat right behind some hooligans that had painted jerseys on themselves and were fairly drunk. all the better for conversation. i actually talked to some guy that was wearing an oldschool mo vaughn red sox jersey. not really important. but after that we went out for the night and got up really early. we had to get up at 330, and our flight was at 635.


we got to sydney at like 8ish and then moved in to the apartment. but before i could do that i went to the beach for a few hours, got some color. now its time to shower and figure out who has which room.

cheers