The least adventurous in the adventure capital

Trip Start Feb 03, 2008

Trip End Apr 14, 2008

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Where I stayed

Yha Queenstown Lakefront
(aka. Queenstown YHA)

(Queenstown hotels)

Flag of New Zealand Queenstown, New Zealand
Sunday, April 6, 2008

OK so you're all gonna slag me off and call me whatever you will. OK I didn't do a bungy jump! Now there is a word beginning with a p that I'm sure I will be called when I get back into the pub at home but frankly I don't care. Having watched some of these nutters throw themselves off on the bungy jumps and swings, frankly you could hand me a winning lottery ticket to do it and I still wouldn't. End of story, no amount of people saying, "Oh you should do it, it's really good" or "Oh mate you can't come to Queenstown and not do a bungy", would ever make me do it. And the fact that you have to pay them in excess of 100 quid for some of them to do it is frankly stupid. Why in my right mind would I pay someone a ridiculously large sum of money to be scared shitless. The only reason I could think of doing it would be to gain some stupid adventurous bragging rights in the pub when I get home but then I thought na, it still aint worth it. And so I'll let Browny keep the title of the only one of my mates to do a bungy. But as I told you mate, your pansy one off Blackpool pier aint a patch on the ones in Queenstown

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Anyway so what have I been upto. Well very little to be brutally honest. I'm a bit travel weary now and am well geared up for home to be honest - never thought I'd be saying that. On Friday it was raining so I did a bit of indoor mini golf with a kid called Adam who I'd met in Christchurch earlier in the week. I killed him, absolutely obliterated him by about 20 shots! Dicky, be scared mate my puttings getting better just in time for a return to a golf course near you as soon as the stupid climate at home remembers that its supposed to be spring there. Mind you putting aint no good when I'm likely to fluff every tee shot into the nearest batch of stinging nettles, but still I saw an improvement in my putting skill amongst the electric model windmills, ski lifts and roller coasters on the Queenstown Indoor course! After that I celebrated my excellent performance by getting mind-numbingly drunk in a club and staggering home at 2am feeling rather ill. Saturday therefore became a wash out, though not because of the weather this time, rather my upset stomach and throbbing headache. I even went to the supermarket to try and find some of the hangover remedies that Browny brought to Magaluf a couple of years ago but couldn't remember what they were called and couldn't even find any paracetamol. Although in the late afternoon I did summon enough strength to get on the cable car up the cliff face that overlooks Queenstown.
Now the Skyline complex at the top of the cliff face is home to the best view I've seen in New Zealand and that is no mean feat

. You can see Lake Wakatipu, the town and the mountain range called the Remarkables behind the lake. And yes the mountains are pretty remarkable as you will see from the photos. So I had a mill around at the top for a bit and watched the AJ Hackett bungy jump, this was where I definitely decided I wouldn't be jumping ever!
Today I got an extra hour in bed as the clocks went back 1 hour in New Zealand for the winter. I'm now only 11 hours ahead of you back in the UK. This afternoon I went back up the cliff, only this time I had sufficient energy to take the scenic track upto the top. If only someone had told me how steep the track was, I was absolutely nackered by the time I reached the top an hour after leaving my hostel. Today though rather than merely looking at the view I decided to actually do something. So I had a go on the luge which is a kind of cross between go-karting and toboganing. You go down one of two tracks on what I can only describe as a tobogan on wheels. I mastered it fairly quickly and after 5 goes I am pretty sure I'm the fastest person ever to have gone down the advanced course. Well maybe today anyway! Or that hour! Anyway I was bloody quick. So quick in fact that at several times when I took corners, I was convinced I was gonna fall off as my mate Adam had done a few days before which resulted in him getting some pretty nasty cuts and grazes. But I didn't fall off and to be honest the luge was pretty entertaining

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So tonight I'm having an early one as due to the ineptitude of New Zealand's national coach services my bus to Christchurch leaves at 8am in the morning not to arrive until 5:45pm. So I'm in for a good day tomorrow!!! Well at least it aint snowing I suppose. I'm just currently praying that the Andy McNabb book that I've been lent is interesting otherwise the journey could prove to be pretty unbearable.
Anyway so on Tuesday I am flying back upto Auckland where the weather is looking a damn sight warmer than it has been down here on the South Island. I may even get a last opportunity to top up the already fading sun tan. While In Auckland I'm hoping to meet up with a girl who I went to school with who emigrated out here a few years ago, so hopefully she'll be able to point me in the right direction of what there is to do in Auckland. Other than that I'm planning a bit of sightseeing, souvenir shopping and a bit of relaxation before I commence the 35 hour trip home via Sydney in the early hours of next Sunday morning.

Right well I'm now pissed off cos It's just taken absolutely ages for my photos to upload so I'm off to Fergburger, the finest burger joint in the southern hemisphere for dinner, then I'm gonna phone my mother, then I'm going to bed.

Have fun making snowmen.