Matterhorn Chalet Queenstown

... state as one Irish girl who had initially been refused entry as she had also been out for 12+ hours. Not to be off put however, , she sneaked in the back door, only to fall asleep in the disabled toilet. The staff had to carry her out, but at least they ensured she was decent before they did!

As it was a windy day, i checked around noon that my dive was still on. I was told to come back at 2pm, which i did after messing around for a couple of hours. Not too delighted to be ...

... trying to find the owner of the dog!! Rob was the only person to speak me!!) and a swiss lady called Carolina, these 3 will be good mates by the end of the day and great fun too. After the jet boat we are dropped off at the rivers edge and are instructed to start pumping up our canoes!! Me and Em make a start but we don't refuse any help from all the guys who offer!!
Then off we go paddling away up river against the wind! Its pretty hard going and me ...

... across all New Zealand. I think this sort of place will catch on globally – you saw it here first!

Wines tasted

Tom (Bordeaux Blend), Church Road, Hawke’s Bay

Rippon Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006, Central

Amsfield Pinot Noir 2007, Central

Two others (as you can imagine, it all went a little hazy!)

Then a full glass of Rippon Pinot – fantastic!

Dinner at Finz, sister ...

... 400 feet above Queenstown we drove out of the fog into clear blue skies. It's the closest thing you can experience on a road to a plane flying up and out of the clouds. The views down across the fog bound valleys below were quite stunnning.

Louise was eventually talked out of doing the world's highest bungee jump though we did get suckered into going on a jet boat up the Shotover River which was absolutely "baltic"...we looked at one ...

... so much he asked would I mind if he took a copy of my video so that he could put it on his company's website. Hilarious, that made us two laugh all day!!

The next day we planned a sky dive..(sorry mum) and then we had to leave the mad Queenstown to continue our Bertha Adventures...but that's another story and the next blog entry...

We hope you like the videos and photos.

Lots and lots and lots of love
Katrina and Award Winning Dancing Phil xxxxxxxx

... a backwards jump which was rated 5/5 on the scary level but he needed full preparation for the next day! The next day Nick had a Nevis highwire bungy jump booked (143m, 8secs freefall, highest bungy in NZ). It was very expensive so I didn't do it, thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it! I went along to watch. There was this chair that they had to sit in when their turn was next and you could see them shaking with absolute fear! Nick wasn't shaking ...

... over a gorge with a river below, mountains on all sides. A harness is attached to the body and even during the gondola ride you are attached. Once inside the suspension pod, or whatever the heck you call it, you get more harnesses around your ankles. It was nice to see other people go before me. There was a clear portion of the floor and watching someone jump and seeing how far below they end up is nothing short of madness. It's so far down that it seems they fall forever ...

... for kids than adults, but we got our entry practically free due to a voucher so we thought 'why not?'! after exiting the tour, we were allowed a tester of all the products the factory makes, which was... tasty! afterwards we head across town to the rum distillery, where we took a walk through their extremely detailed museum, practically filled from floor to ceiling with displays telling you all about everything that has ever happened at the distillery, during the last 100 years ...

After our first two weeks on the North Island we headed south across Cooks Straight and are now on the South Island. We've been down here for about 2 weeks and have made our way down to Queenstown. We have to admit that we enjoy the South Island a little more as there are less people and just more beauty. We thought the North Island would be hard to beat but we immediately love the south. The only problem has been the weather. When we were on the west coast it ...

... Omers Park in Queenstown being the first). We hung around quite a while, just taking it all in - one of the rocks has grafitti carved into it - and one of the names date back to 1866 which I thought was just amazing.

Once back on the road we stopped at a dam for some reason then headed back to Queenstown - not long after the dam we drove around a bend in the road and there was just a massive wall of fog in front of us - pretty scary and it came out of nowhere - around the ...