Driving to Queenstown felt like one of the hardest journeys so far… Many many stops, including one for some roadside noodles! Plus a 2hr nap! – we didn’t think of how tired we’d be for a long drive before booking kayaking for the day haha oh well! The nap solved the problem and after driving through some very impressive scenery we made it to Queenstown at about 9pm, not to bad! We headed for the DOC camp – that was free! And got up early and checked ourselves into the campsite in town nice and early so we could make use of the sites facilities all day for a change!
Queenstown was great, we really liked it, a lot more than expected. Lots of little shops and by recommendation we headed to fergburgers for lunch. These where the biggest and by FAR the best burgers we have ever had!! We both forced ourselves to eat every last bit, even if it made us sick, it was far to good to leave!! After that we wobbled down to sit by the lake and enjoy the view as it was a great day, it was blue sky with lots of sun, but it got really windy, a really cold wind!! so we headed around the shops (including Patagonia ice cream! Never too full for ice cream, and it was amazing….) then around the Gardens that had Frisbee Golf… people looked to be taking that far to seriously haha. Next we headed up the Gondola to see some fantastic views over Queenstown and then we had a go of the Luge! This was a great idea and James wished we had brought the package for more go’s! Its like a go-cart but with just a break and you pick up speed quickly as your on a hill, simple idea but great fun – well until you get stuck behind a chinese family that are just about moving but still breaking way to much! was funny to see Clare get completely stuck behind them tho!
Next day we headed to Arrow Town (an old gold town) that has really kept all its charm, it had some great quaint shops including a old fashioned sweet shop (with less than old fashioned prices – we will stick with the cheap supermarket ones) and a really cool mini cinema that had all old fashioned seats in a small room, looked like someones living room – very cool wish we had time to see a film and have a bottle of wine! The next stop was Kawarau bridge, the original bungy location, we just wanted to watch some crazy people jumping and get some good snaps! But soon as we started watching (it was amazing the range of ages that would do it from as young as 10 to 70 were doing it.) we took less pictures then started to think wow maybe we should do this, and debated for ages as it rained then got sunny then hailed which put us a little off so we decided to leave… 10 mins up the road we realised that we would definitely regret not doing it so turned back! The location was perfect, brilliant turquoise river underneath and a great old bridge, the setting was what made part of it so tempting! We decided to do a tandem – cheaper for pictures and video too! Brilliant, so we walked right back in, booked our selfs in and then before we new it we was up on the bridge getting ready for something we never ever planned to do! Excellent! I think we waited for about 40mins but it went fast as we was trying to keep warm as the weather kept changing and we was talking to lots of people around us. It was crazy when it was our turn as we both seemed absolutely fine, just wow cant wait now! I was still slightly nervous that we are about to jump of a bridge if anything, but it was brilliant, all I remember once we got to the edge was our jumping plan, so they would count us down then hopefully we would both jump or at least one of us would, and that be enough to take the other with them – but then he counted down soo fast i think it threw us off and before we new it bunnngggyyyy! it was such a brilliant feeling even if our jump was very badly sequinized (as we knew it would be!) we loved it and was buzzing watching the video back just made us laugh and smile so much, and the pictures were great, so with then in toll we headed of towards the glaciers with a stop at the first Indian Restaurant for a celebratory bit of dinner out!
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