Skydiving is awesome! I did it from 15000ft (The highest available) where you free fall for 60 seconds and in those 60 seconds travel 2 miles vertically down to earth where your new best friend pulls the parachute cord and you slow down to a glide down to earth. My new best friend was a guy called Adam who was from Liverpool and has been a sky dive person in America and Israel before working for Skydive Wanaka.

They give you the option to get a video and photos of the whole thing by a second man that goes with you to do the filming so I’ll put the video up here when I can but for now there’s plenty of pics.

It was me, Jon and some other person up first and as I got in the plane last, I was the first out. On the way up Adam was explaining to me what was going to happen, told me if I couldn’t breath to scream which would make me breath (apparently) and he said ‘I bet you havn’t been this close to a man in while eh!’

Then 15000ft came and my cameraman got out and hung onto the side of the plane until I was sitting on the edge with my legs dangling out. Then before I knew it I was upside down flying through the air! After a few seconds when they tap you on the shoulder you can let go of your harness and put your arms out and pull funny faces for the camera. I was soon finding that I couldn’t breath, or scream like he suggested and was trying to think of ways I could let him know that I might pass out but then thought there probably wasn’t much he could do for me anyway so I concentrated on trying to smile and look like I was saying ‘woooooh’ and ‘weeeee’.

The adrenaline rush is something else and it didn’t seem like 30 seconds before Adam pulled the parachute and we were decending at a much slower pace, he let me have a go at controlling the parachute too but I wasn’t doing a very good job so he took control back. Then he started pointing out all the different rivers and mountains we could see which was interesting an calmed me down a bit.

I landed with a bump and managed to stand up albeit with shaky legs and shook his hand, then met up with Jon who somehow managed to get to the ground first (heavier I guess).

 Yes I reccomend you do it too!

Skydiving

Since I’ve done a fair bit in the last few weeks I’ll chuck it all into one post rather than making a post for each, coz I’d have to think of titles for each one, publish each on and put the picture links in each one so for my laziness’ sake here it goes…

We went on a day trip to Akaroa, a little harbour town about 80kms from Christchurch. You get some awesome views of it when driving there from the top of the hills and there’s a scenic drive which takes you over the hills around it giving impressive sights and the sun being out topped it off. The French landed there in 1840 and planned to colonise but unfortunately for them, we (the brits) had already proclaimed sovereignty over New Zealand . There’s still some frenchness there though, with street names and French flags dotted around.

Akaroa

Not long after we quite our jobs at The Warehouse and got travelling again, heading south we stopped at Dunedin which is the second largest city in the south island after Christchurch. It’s a nice city and has a Speight’s brewery and a Cadbury factory, we did both the tours which were cool, they both gave out freebies . At the end of the Cadbury one, you go into one of the silo’s and they show you a chocolate waterfall, well 1 tonne of chocolate run down in front of you. In the Speight’s one you get to pull you’re own beer (a few times) for each of the different beers. I must say that after going through each tour and seeing how they’re made, I have a new respect for them and no what to look for when sampling different brands. My favourite Speight’s beer is the Summer Harvest which has a refreshing apricot flavour and I’m gutted you can’t get it back home so I’ll be getting some at the duty free at the airport .

The next day we jumped on a train, the Taieri Gorge Railway which is a tourist train that runs from Dunedin Train Station. The line was closed in 1990 so the Otago Excursions Trust and Dunedin City Council bought part of the Railway from the Dunedin Train station to Middlmarch. There’s some remarkable views along the way and going through the tunnels is always cool.

The other cool thing in Dunedin is, the worlds steepest street! I’ll have to get a spirit level on Hill Street in Deri and check but this street was steep! And much longer than Hill Street.

Dunedin	Speights Brewery Tour	Taieri Gorge Railway

Milford Sound was the next stop for a bit of kayaking. We had to get up at 6am for this because Milford Sound is so out of the way, there’s only one road there and it takes about 2 hours. Oh yeh guess what, Milford Sound was originally called Milford Haven by the Welsh guy that found it John Grono. It’s also incorrectly named a sound because its actually a fiord, but there wasn’t an English word to describe a fiord at the time apparently. Its an amazing place whatever it is, with in-your-face cliffs either side of the river. There were some small(ish) waves which made it interesting and our tour guide Blake gave us loads of info. We saw some penguins and a seal but no dolphins. On the way back we made a raft by joining the kayaks together then he Blake gave the people at the front of the two person kayaks a sail and the people at the back attached the rope of the sail to one end of their paddles then when we held our paddles up the sail caught the wind and we were off. It was quite difficult to keep it going but we got some speed fair play before the Germans started seperating from the raft and capsized ha ha! So Blake rushed of to save them while we waited, and waited until Blake comes back toeing the Germans coz their rudder broke during the capsize. Great laugh

Milford Sound

Wanaka was next. This is kind of like a smaller Queenstown but I liked it just as much as Queenstown, its got the same sort of chilled-out vibe and there’s loads to do in and around. It sits right next to the Lake Wanaka where you can swim, sunbath or go out on your yacht, if you have one. Time was against us but if you’re ever in the south Island of New Zealand, go to Wanaka!

Wanka

Queenstown, this is a cool town. Named so for being “fit for a Queen” its known as the adrenaline capitol because this is where all the fun things are from skiiing, mountain biking, jet boating, bungee jumping and skydiving. We didn’t manage to do these here but there’s always next time. We did go up the gondola which from the top gives awesome panoramic views of Queenstown and there’s a luge ride which was good fun and we found our Italian friend that was in our kayaking group so we had a chat with him.

Queenstown

Hope you have a good day out on the zimmer frame. Sorry I can’t be there but your present is in the post (i think) but might not turn up for a while…

So let me know what you had and what you all did. Happy Birthday.

I woke up this morning/afternoon to find a big empty space where the telly used to be because it actually belonged to one of the guys who used to live here and so he came and took it back. The girls aren’t too keen on our idea to get a new 32″ LCD though so thats a pity.

The next thing is to get a job to build the funds back up to travel around New Zealand and maybe fall out of a plane or off a bridge or 3…

Rarotonga is like the main one of the cook islands and is where the government which only looks after a few matters before the New Zealand government takes control.

Getting here was a laugh, after spending 3 whole days on a bus we checked into a hotel in sydney and had a shower! Ahhhhhh.  Then had a look around, we walked half way across the harbour bridge got a good view of the opera house (it looks a lot smaller in real life).  We didn’t walk down to it though, it was miles away and we were naffed. 

Then the flight took us back 20 hours so we’re now 10 hours behind you lot,  actually 11 i think coz of daylight savings or whatever.  So we landed ( a little to quick for my liking) and in the airport was a guy in grass skirt singing and playing the guitar ha ha.  Apparently they give you those flower necklace things when you arrive and leave but we didnt get one so I will make sure I get one when we leave

Its very relaxed here too, and to pass our test for a scooter licence we had to ride the scooter through town and back with the police man behind us but I set off, didnt stop for people on the pelican crossing and carried on, the rest of them in my group stopped though and then got caught in traffic, I thought I’d have to do it again but he gave us a pass he he.  The scooters are cool and a good way to get around on the island, we did rent mountain bikes for a few days when we got here but coz most of the cars are old, you get a lung full of old exhaust fumes whenever you get overtaken.

 We’ve been swimming in the lagoon right by our hostel too, well, we walked most of it, its really shallow, theres a few tiny islands off our beach so you can walk to them.  We had a go at swimming though and I bashed my knee on a big lump of coral then stood on some which I had to pick out of my foot, add that to the bug bites, oh yeh and burning my leg on the exhaust of the scooter and you could say the island is leaving an impression on me.

I went to church last sunday too, (the advertised free lunch had nothing to do with persuading me to get up for it) it was interesting, most of it was in maori and they had a bit where the choir did some songs which were cool and the sermon was for about 10 minutes lol.  In the hall where we had lunch, there were a school group over from new zealand and they did a performance for everyone which was cool too, and they finished on the hakka – wicked.

 I’m taking pictures of the island and stuff but I havn’t got a way to upload any here so you’ll have to wait till im in new zealand which should be next thursday woo hoo!

Out.

 I’m in Darwin this week which is the Northern Territories capital.  Its very nice compared to some of the towns we’ve seen on the way up, there’s some stories to tell there!  Its been an adventure travelling up the west coast and through the Norther Territory and Ive uploaded the photos see below.  On the way up we’ve swam in the sea a few times and noticed the weather getting hotter and hotter, at the moment here in Darwin its about 20 something degrees at 00:45 and in the day its up to its 40′s, all the time!  We’ve also slept in the car, avoided the sharks, sleep in the car, nearly swim with Dolphins (or at least be in the water knee deep and see them being fed), avoided stonefish (they’re really nasty!), sleep in the car, not get eaten by crocodiles that were only meters away, swim under waterfalls not get attacked by Aborigines and make it here to Darwin alive.  Aaaaaah.  All will be explained in more detail I promise.

Oh yeh, you know I said that we were going to get a flight from Darwin to Sydney?  Scrap that, all the flights are booked up to all the major cities which left us wandering if we were going to make it to the cook islands and have had to resort to getting a bus! A bus! to take us from here, to Sydney via Alice Springs and Adelaide (See route) which is 4403 kilometres and will take us 3 days (fun) meaning that we’ll get to Sydney a day before our flight giving us a few hours to take as much of Sydney in as possible.  However, because me and Jonny have worked out that it takes at least a week to suss out most of the cities we’ve sort of kinda roughly planned our next visit to Oz where we’ll cover the east coast.

Photo update:

Perth to Darwin

Basically over the last few days we came back from Albany and we’ve been to the Pinnacles and yesterday we went to the Wave Rock which was 360km east and its a crazy rock that looks like a wave funnily enough which was cool.

We’ve checked out now and are gonna start the next leg up to Darwin. We were originally going to get the Indian Pacific train from here (Perth) to Adelaide and then from there to Melbourne then Sydney but now we’re gonna drive up to Darwin with our new buddy Jelle (pronounced something like yeller, but I call him Jelly) which should work out cheaper and we get to see the north of Australia.

So, I’ll let you know how we get on, I don’t know when I’ll next get online, hopefully sooner rather than later.

The Wave Rock

This is the Albany Highway ^ and nice it may look, soon gets a bit boring after about 100km and we were on it for 400. The road kill is different here, whereas back home you’ll get the odd hedgehog or maybe even a squirrel, down here its kangaroos, I was quite excited to see my first kangaroo I didn’t expect it to be a dead one, in fact I haven’t seen any live ones yet.

We reached Albany just before it was getting dark so by the time we got checked in to the hostel and moved our bags in the sun was going down and we had a look around. My first impressions of the town were good and were heightened after the pizza. We played some pool then back at the hostel for a bit then saw a listings sheet for the local cinema that was showing Transformers! This was a no-brainer so set off. The cinema didn’t look anything special, from the outside it looked like a fairly standard small town cinema and the foyer was only big enough for the sales desk thing, some sweet shelves and a small queue but the actual screen was actually quite big fair play so I was pleasantly surprised. Transformers is awesome by the way!

The Australians seem to like their films though, they’re very vocal when watching them, there were a lot of ‘yay’s and ‘boo’s at the appropriate parts which I found quite funny, back home people are usually quite quiet until there’s a funny bit worth laughing at.

See all the pictures in the album >