Crossing the
International Date Line is a bit of a mind-bender. Instead of travelling west and going back a few hours, the clock leaps forward a whole day. How dare my favourite planet mac me off like a two-bob, especially after all we've been through together. It's a swindle, I tell thee. I want my day back.
Way back in September, when I was furiously slamming together a framework of flights to get me round the globe I never imagined I'd need to hit New Zealand via Australia. Nor did I anticipate having to shift my flight by six days before my
OneWorld ticket would accommodate me. End result - Argentina acquired an extra week of my company. No bad thing, except it inflicted a concertina effect on my time in NZ. So, why not shift it all along? Well, I spent a sad panda of a Christmas in BA so I'm damn well gonna be with my brother in Hong Kong for my birthday if it kills me. An old acquaintance from London made it pretty clear she'd never speak to me again if I didn't pop in and say hi as I passed through so how could I possibly refuse an extended stopover with a friendly face in
Sydney?
I arrive for a couple of days to be kindly accommodated by Sarah and Adam. They've got this outrageously cool pad by
Luna Park, overlooking the
Sydney Harbour Bridge. Airport pick-up, barbecue banquet upon arrival, my own en-suite bedroom, This dormitory-weary cat got the cream for sure.
I spend Friday wandering around the
Central Business District with lunch on
Darling Harbour (oh, how I've missed
Wagamama, you beaut!) followed by a gentle stroll around
The Rocks,
Circular Quay,
Sydney Opera House and head deep into the
Royal Botanic Gardens. I hook up with Sarah and a couple of her ex-pat colleagues (Ben and Matty) at
Ryan's Bar in Australia Square and swiftly get on the juice. Do not pass the menu, do not collect two-hundred pounds and proceed directly to
Hugo's in Kings Cross. It turns into a late one, strewn with some ungodly shots. I have vague recollections of a taxi ride home before awaking with a vuvuzela headache. At least I got up for breakfast which is more than can be said for my host, 'kin lightweight!
It's a late start on Saturday but after a quick visit to the supermarket we drag ourselves over the bridge for a swift one and some snacks. A small group of us dress up for the night (for me, that amounts to a clean pair of socks) and catch a ferry to
Manly for a wander around, a pitstop in a pub for a beer and some quality pizza in another branch of Hugo's by the harbour. I'm clearly still a bit jeg-lagged as I get bludgeoned by the sleepy stick on the return trip and manage to snore myself home. Adam runs me to the airport in the morning and so the NZ chapter begins. Thanks for your hospitality peeps, much appreciated.
Auckland is home to a third of all Kiwi's. You'll have to ask them why because I'm at a loss to explain this. Let's be clear, it's not unusual for me to arrive in a new place feeling a bit edgy and apprehensive but all I want to do is get out of this soulless, lego-brick void as quickly as possible. I spend one miserable night at
Base, a penny-pinching cattle-farm of a hostel in Queen Street, before catching the first available
Jet Star flight to
Christchurch in the
South Island. Speak to most travellers and they'll tell you South Island is where it's really at and I'm short on time so I'm getting out now.
Gary, a guy I met back in Bariloche, was waxing lyrical about NZ and gave me the idea of using
Stray to get around. It's a hop-on, hop-off backpackers bus service, a lot like
Kiwi Experience but with, in my opinion, a slightly more refined and mature clientèle. They've established preferential deals with a bunch of hostels and activity groups so they make it incredibly easy to get by and meet like-minded people. The route I'm taking is affectionately branded the
Short Willy (yeah yeah, get over it) and travels anti-clockwise round the South Island covering all but the southern-most region. I spend a fairly uneventful evening at
Friendz hostel in Christchurch before fumbling my way onto the bus in the morning with a pair of seasoned Strays I meet there. I feel like the new kid at school.
There's about thirty Stray drivers, each with peculiar nicknames and ours is no exception. He introduces himself as Nana and explains a little bit our first destination,
Kaikoura. An accommodation and activities sheet is passed around the bus which we tick and by the time we arrive I have a bed for the night and instructions on how to go
whale watching and
swimming with dolphins. Easy peasy.
My contempt for Lonely Planet guidebooks is growing. I swear, if you genuinely think you need one of these ex-trees in the internet age, you're so far of the beaten track that your life is most definitely in danger. They're like the diametric opposite to the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Page one, "Do Panic!" Just file them under "B" (for "Bin") and talk to people, for fucks sake! While I'm on a whinge-athon, given that collective reasoning suggests all these books are out of date the moment they're printed, why exactly do people spend years filling whole shelves back home with this pointless nostalgia. "Oh, I see you went to Thailand?" "Yes, it was like, fifteen years ago." "Nice, what's it like?" "I have no idea, it was like, fifteen years ago." In their defence, the
Lonely Planet website is pretty good and always up to date. It's not their fault that their weighty tomes still have an audience but I guess they're not complaining much either.
My hostel for the night in Kaikoura is the
Adelphi Lodge and most of the bus disembark to stay here for the night. My roomie's got this massive bloodshot eye. When I ask him how he got it, he pulls out photos of him doing all manner of outrageous bungy jumps in
Queenstown. He has no regrets, in fact, quite the opposite. When a salivating Dr Evil lookalike stares at you and insists you ascend to some ridiculously high point above a ravine and jump into thin air it doesn't instil you with an irresistible desire. No thanks, I'll stick to whale watching, which reminds me, gotta dash!
The whales are pretty cool and we get treated to a group of about six sperm whales all gathered together which we're told is very unusual. There's a massive trench in the waters around Kaikoura which is like an aquatic mirror image of the mountains which surround it. It's perfect for the whales which is why this place is renowned for the big fellas. For the dolphins, we need to wait until dawn so we head back to the hostel for beers and a pub quiz (which we win!) in the adjacent boozer.
It's a 5am start. A group of us head over to the dive centre to get kitted out in our wetsuits and snorkelling kit before bus takes us to our boat and we head out to find the pods of
dusky dolphins offshore. The guide estimates the area is home to about 2,500 of these guys so we're in with a good chance. From a distance, the pod looks like a large patch of disturbed water, as if there's a rainstorm directly above them in the cloudless sky. The boat accelerates beyond the head of the pod and a siren is our cue to hop off. I think all 2,500 turned out for us today. A kaleidoscope of hundreds of dolphins come darting towards us. If you stop to look at one as it flies past it will start to circle you. If you manage to keep up with Flipper for a few turns he'll leap out the water as if to congratulate you before sprinting off with his buddies. Phenomenal stuff! What a way to start the day! What they don't tell you is dolphins don't have toilets yet. They tend to lose a little of their charm once they've shat digested fish bits in your face a couple of times.
By the time our group get back to the Adelphi, the rest of the Strays are eager to depart so I gather my shit together in a panic. I hate being rushed like this, I'm always think I'm going to forget something important and I'm certainly not going to dry my swimming shorts in time so they get to chance to try their luck in a plastic bag for the day.
Nana's a great guy but someone needs to work on his choice of music. He invites us to pass up our iPods up to the front of the bus so we can play some choons under the proviso of no albums, no boy/girl-bands and no rap music. Deal. I remove all the Spice Girls, N-Sync and Vanilla Ice from my tried-and-tested playlist and pass my favourite gadget forward. It's all good for a while then, a little later, it goes silent. He tells me later he prefers a little more "easy listening" before subjecting us to his finest collection of vomit-inducing James Blunt tracks. WTF!
The bus heads north where the
Interislander ferry service operates between
Picton and
Wellington. A handful of us are not going this way so Nana arranges a rendezvous with another Stray driver who has just disembarked the southbound ferry and we switch buses by the side of the road.
My new driver is Curry and she remains my driver for the rest of my trip. She's a humourous, no-holds-barred, say-what-you-see type and keeps us all in check. As a bonus, she's also got a decent taste in music. Our bus, named Emma, keeps us entertained too by breaking down twice in the sweltering heat on our way to
Marahau in the
Abel Tasman National Park. Curry maintains her cool in front of us, despite Emma and her weary passengers crawling into town three hours late on what was already a very long day. Much respect, hats off to her. Behind closed doors though, I'm pretty sure she let rip at the guys back at Stray HQ.
En-route today, I must have been suffering from heatstroke when the activity sheet got handed around and I managed to tick the box that said "Skydiving" instead of "Kayaking". What was I thinking? Perhaps every fear does disguise a wish. When in Rome. Insert more random clichés. Am I really scared of heights, scared of falling or just the unknown? Isn't finding out the answers to shit like this what the whole travelling thing is about? I've got to break the back of this confusion. I've got a whole day to consider my actions while I try to relax in our gorgeous retreat,
The Barn, for the night.
Kevin, Ginny, Hayley and myself head down to the beach in the morning to chill out. Hayley's leapt out of a plane before but Kevin's another skydive virgin and Ginny's joining us to point, laugh and provide a motherly shoulder to weap on. The bus picks us up at 4pm and takes us to the
Skydive Centre at
Motueka. Upon arrival, we're split into two groups. Those who want cameramen to film their jumps and those who don't. It's not exactly cheap at 400 NZ dollars, but the use of a cameraman hikes the cost up another 50 percent so a Danish girl named Mie and I elect to
not have our final moments captured forever. Our penalty is that we get to jump last and end up shaking with fear for well over two hours. Our only comfort is looking at the eight beaming faces of those who jump and land successfully before us.
Obviously we're going in
tandem, strapped to experienced guys known as jump masters. It helps to know these adrenaline junkies need to have completed 2,500 jumps before they can take us with them. Think about it, if they did five jumps a day it would still take them over a year to qualify. These guys are well paid, and rightfully so. My main concern, contrary to what I considered was traditional skydive etiquette, is that they don't pack their own chutes. Hmmmm, I hope those guys out in the backroom don't have any deep-rooted grudges. And if they don't, can you imagine the guilt if they're responsible for any accidents out there? So far so good though. Apparently, NZ has a 100 percent success rate in getting tandems down safely.
As the sun begins to set, we finally hop in our tiny plane. My tandem master, Mike, straps himself to me while I crush his bollocks (every job has its downsides) and we ascend to 16,500 feet, putting on oxygen masks as we pass 12,000 feet. The door is thrown open and Mie goes first, one second she's there then she gets flicked out of sight. Holy crap, no turning back now. Mike and I shuffle forward to swing our legs out. My eyes are transfixed on the sky above me. There's no way I'm looking dow ... Whoooaaa! The air catches my outstretched legs and we backflip out so I'm staring back at the plane as it disappears into the sky with my stomach still in it and then ... it's over. In a flash, the fear is replaced by absolute astonishment. Mike, spins us round as I hurtle down at 125mph trying to work out how to breathe without getting the back of my head blown off. There's no cameraman to distract so there's time to mess about. Arms outstretched, we make tiny fins with our hands which spin us round and round like a propeller. I don't remember much else of the freefall. The shortest, most exciting minute of my life thus far is over.
Mike pulls the cord, slamming on the brakes at about 4,000 feet and everything goes silent. Umm, remind me, what language I speak again? Oh, yeah, English. "Whoooaaa, Holy Fuck!!!" Repeated several times for emphasis before equalising my eardrums which explode back into shape. Obviously, the freefall bit is special but I hadn't banked on the parachute being so much fun too. Mike passes me the reins. I didn't expect this and it turns out no-one else got this treatment today. "Pull hard left!" ... and we start spiralling around. "Now, pull hard right!" ... and we seem to flip right over the top of the chute as all the blood drains from my head. "Now, pull both together" ... and we seem to stop dead in the air like a hummingbird. The fear creeps back momentarily as I realise what we're really doing up here and think we're gonna stall and plummet to the earth or something else unrealistic. Over the next four minutes, the ground accelerates slowly towards us and we bank hard to get onto the landing strip and skid along the ground for about twenty yards. Unstrapped, I leap up with a smile twice the width of my face. Take me back up, I wanna do it again, right now!
Something pretty major just happened to me and I'm buzzing for days. The place in my head which was previously occupied by a tumour of abject fear is gone forever and replaced by something much more cozy and compelling. It's a bit like meeting someone you love instantly and know will be a friend forever. But also, dare I say it, I have a new understanding of why people jump out of burning buildings. It's true, you're never closer to life than when you're seconds from death. Skydiving is
the bomb. My new favourite thing in the world. Stop reading this now and go sign up ... what? You're still here? OK, later then, I have some more for you anyway.
We leave Abel Tasman National Park in the morning. Not that there's nothing more to do here, far from it. Of course, I'm free to stick around and pick up the next bus in a day or two but it means leaving this lovely group of new buddies. There's a pack mentality forming and the bus is full to bursting point on a daily basis. Our first stop before tonight's festivities is
The Truman Track in
Paparoa National Park to catch some spectalular coastline views and rock formations then onto the other-worldly pancake rocks and blowholes further down the coast at
Punakaiki. We arrive at the All Nations Tavern in
Barrytown where I think we might be the main attraction. The photos on the wall lay testament to the previous debauchery so we've got a lot to live up to but we do our best. They have a dressing room full of boxes of clothes and everyone ends up making a bit of a tit of themselves ... except me, of course. I often dress up in women's clothing, I just didn't happen to bring any with me this time so I
had to borrow some. No shame in that, is there?
I duck out of the Barrytown morning activity (bone and jade pendant carving) to get a little extra sleep before heading to
Franz Josef via
Greymouth. We arrive at
Rainforest Retreat to be greeted, coincidentally, by a rainstorm caused by the tail-end of some Australian cyclone or something ... whatever, it lasts for almost three days and pisses me right off. The primary activity here is glacier walking. Given the prevailing weather conditions and the not too distant memory of the incredible Perito Moreno in Patagonia I'm not particularly interested so I sit this one out and kick back for a couple of days. A sound move methinks, judging by the drowned rats which returned from the glacier the following day.
I think the weather here may have affected my mood a little. Some stupid drunken English bint from Kiwi Experience with cigarette burns up her arm from a drinking game she lost the night before corners me and starts talking shite. After she takes a dislike to a joke I make about self-harmers, she slurs, "How old do you think I am? Go on, guess. Well? Come on, guess my age." To which I reply, "On the evidence presented thus far, love, I'd hazard a guess you're about, what, fifteen?" I should have guessed I'd get kicked in the nuts for that but she more than deserved the ridicule for being a legendary dick. They should have confiscated her passport at Heathrow.
The weather has caused a landslide further up the road and the Kiwi Experience bus which leaves Franz Josef early in the morning gets stuck waiting for the road to re-open which it does just as we arrive two hours later. Suckers! The rain is still really bad, which is a shame.
Lake Matheson is a washout and no-one ventures further than the visitor centre. Along the route to
Makarora things clear up and we get to check out
Thunder Creek Falls and
The Blue Pools which, after the downpours, are unfortunately looking a nasty shade of brown. We arrive at our quirky triangular huts in Makarora and head down to the bar for some Karaoke action. Another first for me but I take Curtis, Kevin and Darcy for company before annihilating Five Hundred Miles by The Proclaimers. No prizes won this time.
I get a few hours kip before I'm up and at 'em for an hour of cold, early morning
Jet Boat action with 360 degree spins aplenty. Great start to the day but yet again, I'm left to panic about packing up my shit while the
bus-wankers wait outside. At midday we drop off a few Strays at the beautiful
Lake Wanaka and stop for some quality sushi for lunch before heading to my home for the next week in Queenstown, but not before stopping off at the
Kawarau bridge. This historic bridge is the site of the
first ever commercial bungy jump and has been operating since 1988 when the rest of the world said, "Did you see what them crazy Kiwi's have gone and done now?". If you watch the lemmings queueing up to jump off, you occasionally see a few chicken-out at the last moment (usually girls) and you see often see then step off rather than leaping out (also, usually girls) which is dead stupid coz it gives them a crazy whiplash when the elastic tightens. A handful of Strays tackle it but I manage to contain my desire to do a bungy at this point. I know it's a futile resistence. Let's face it, I ain't leaving QT, the cultural home of extreme stupidity, without doing one, at least one.
Within five minutes of entering QT I know I've found my favourite place in NZ and the
Nomads hostel we're staying at ain't too shabby either. It's a fairly quiet night, but the next day Darcy, Fionnuala, Emma, Manon and I do some extreme beach walking, brave the extreme
Skyline Gondola high up above the town for a spot of extreme
Luge, back down to tackle an extreme
Fergburger and hit
Revolver and
Altitude with the other Strays for some extreme liquid refreshment.
On the Thursday I finally cave in and head back to Kawarau Bridge for my first bungy. The water levels are still so high after the recent rain I'm not allowed to get dunked in the river below which is a bit of a disappointment. The big difference with bungy over skydiving, and the thing which made me apprehensive, is the need to actually commit to the jump yourself but if you manage to shut off to the part of your brain that says "don't do this", with the knowledge that it's pretty damn safe, it's really not too bad. It's 43 metre drop. Job done, piece of piss, bring on the big one. After "Fush and Chups" at
PJ's with Fionnuala and Emma, the evening is spent in Revolver again before we move on to the
World Bar, best known for its teapot cocktails. It's got this really neat, dimly-lit lounge at the back where I win a game of pool with the most audacious chip shot ever. Ice cool. I only wish I could have that one on film, it'll
never happen again!
I'm sticking around but it's time to say goodbye to a bunch of Strays who are moving on in the morning. I fucking hate this bit and I'm gonna coin a new phrase to describe it. I'll call it "Friendship Fatigue". It's the point at which you realise that constantly meeting new travellers and sharing memories that'll last a lifetime can only lead to a certain sadness so you step back from it ... for a while at least.
So, I'm in a big miserable lump today and I pacify myself with some sushi before booking a
flight to
Milford Sound for the next day and tracking down the remaining Strays on the village green. Hayley, Curtis and Anita have arrived here fresh from jumping the
Nevis bungy. We take a quick visit to the beach before I hit the sack for a nap which turns into a full-on sleep. Much later, I head out to the World Bar to redeem a few free drink vouchers before Curtis, Hayley, Kevin and myself check out
Póg Mahones (I don't think we'll make the Guinness 1000 pint club tonight!) and the lads finish off in a bar named
Ballarat Trading Co. where the DJ is spinning some old 7 inch vinyl and a more mature crowd is showing the teenagers how to party. I need to get up early for a flight to Milford Sound so I bail out at 1am.
Fail! I call the Milford Sound hotline in the morning to find out my flight's been cancelled due to bad weather so, with my plan for the day in complete disarray, I go back to bed. When I rise and head out to town I bump into Curtis, Hayley, Kevin, Kim, Cecilia and Davin preparing to head up the Skyline Gondola. Curtis and Hayley are tackling
The Ledge bungy jump so I join them for the ride. These guys are eating bungy ropes for breakfast now so after another shot of Luge and another Fergburger I pluck up the courage to sign-up for the Nevis bungy the following day whilst rebooking the Milford Sound trip for the day after.
It's Sunday morning. I vaguely remember a big group of us going back to Ballarat Trading Co. before moving on to the World Bar last night. Whatever it was it's left me with a steaming hangover. Perhaps I was trying to block out the thought of what I'm doing today. At 143 metres, the Nevis bungy is over three times the height of the Kawarau bridge and the highest in Australasia. The jump platform is held in place by a set of long steel cables stretched across a huge ravine to which they trundle you out in a small cage-like shuttle. Before we get shipped out we get fitted with a harness and have a quick briefing, during which we're given a key piece of info, "After the countdown you jump, and if you don't jump you probably won't do it at all." If you think about it, there's a truckload of psychology at work here. In my mind now, I'm no longer about to do it, I've already done it. My mind is on the bus home.
A group of four of us head out together in the shuttle and have to wait, swinging in the breeze whilst the engineers fix something on the winch. Most reassuring. I'm first up, but my fearless alter ego steps in like some kind of guardian angel before I shit myself. My mind is somewhere else completely. The rope is attached to his waist, then down past his ankles via a bolt which he's instructed to pull at the peak of his second bounce or face the unenviable prospect of hanging upside down the whole time. He stands up and shuffles forward to the ledge. 5-4-3-2-1! He gives it the biggest swan dive he can manage. Gravity take hold as the wind rushes past his ears getting faster and louder, but I don't hear him make a sound at all. The first bounce, so he tells me later, is incredibly gentle and the feeling of weightlessness at its peak is sickening but fleeting. He's already concentrating on pulling the bolt which finally gives way after a couple of failed attempts and flips him upright. Some kind of contraption is lowered down, docks at his end of the oversized rubber band with an unnerving clunk and hoists him back up to be reunited with me ... and it's over. Looks like I did it. Who'd have thought that a week ago? Neither him nor I, but then he didn't exist way back then!
At midday I go back into town and meet Hayley, Curtis and Davin at Patagonia's ice-cream parlour. They're now staying at the brand new
Queenstown Adventure Hostel round the corner to take advantage of an appealing introductory daily rate. I've paid in advance at Nomads so I'm stuck there but it's no big deal. Later that evening I crash at their new home to watch a couple of movies with a glass or two of wine. The venue looks half complete but it's got a nice, relaxing and homely feel to it.
Double fail! I wake up late for my re-booked Milford Sound pickup at 8am. Damn, this is not good. If that flight left without me I've just spunked a shitload of moolah on nothing. Thankfully those weather conditions had prevailed and the flight was once again cancelled so I get another lay in. At least now I can get a refund so I head over to see the travel agent later that morning. Firstly, he checks to see if he can get me on the midday flight (which I didn't even know was available) and bingo, it's all systems go again. A minibus picks me up an hour later and takes me to the airfield where I hop onto a ten-seater plane and strap myself into the seat alongside the pilot. Meanwhile, some of the Strays have been bouncing about on a bus to Milford Sound for the last four hours. They won't return until 8pm. I'll be back at 5pm. Sweet as.
The flight is incredible, weaving in and out of the mountains with running commentary from the pilot about the landscape below where Long Of The Rings was filmed, etc. Over the Richardson mountain range and the northern tip of Lake Wakatipu to the Humboldt and Darran ranges before Milford Sound jumps into view. It's an incredible sight. The scattering of low cloud and the perspective we get from this vantage point make it even more impressive. We fly over the airstrip, along the full length of the water up to the
Tasman Sea before looping back to the airstrip and banking hard to make the landing.
There's no way the boat trip can top the little fly-by I just experienced but it does its best and gets us closer to the waterfalls which are neat. If nothing else, it's a chance to reset my adrenaline levels before the return flight.
We take a different route back, flying so close to the Earl and Ailsa ranges I'm surprised we didn't scrape the ice off before dropping down onto and traversing the length of
Lake Wakatipu over Queenstown and back to base at
Frankton for a grass strip landing. Wow! Here's something you don't get to do every day. I pinch myself again and stick "Pilots Licence" on my bucket list. It's Valentines Day and I'd forgotten, how could I? Three years ago today I lost my hero. Granddad would have loved this.
I sleep for a few hours until the weary bus travellers return from Milford Sound at 8pm and I head over to the other hostel. It's Kolja's birthday and our last night in town. It gets messy. World Bar,
Winnies followed by a failed attempt to go to bed before someone pipes up, "Hang on guys, it's our last night in QT, one more in World Bar, anyone?" It would be rude not to.
The next morning Curry is back in town to drive the handful of remaining Strays north for one fairly uneventful night in the beautiful foothills of
Mount Cook and then onward to my final destination of Christchurch where I stay at the
Base hostel in Cathedral Square. It's only just re-opened after the earthquake in September but judging by the enormous crack in the wall next to my bed they should've knocked it down. "Friendship Fatigue" sets in again and an Aussie guy I meet here becomes my first victim. He asks for my email address so I spell it wrong on purpose. I'm running on empty and can't be arsed with this shit anymore. Sorry dude, whoever you are. I'm done.
Before I leave Christchurch I go on a mini walkabout, during which I take a random quick snap of the Cathedral. It's been there for well over 100 years and probably been photographed millions of times. Little did I know it would be one of the last photos ever taken. The huge earthquake which struck less than a week later, on my birthday, was the worst NZ disaster in living memory and decimated the place. I've heard unconfirmed reports that people died in my hostel and a third of all the buildings in town will now need to be demolished. Very sad.
I fly out that afternoon and spend a typically uninspiring night in
Nomads hostel, Auckland, before leaving NZ for good. It's been emotional. Chur chur!
There's just time to share a couple more blonde moments with you. Firstly, whilst tucking into a pizza, I manage to persuade a certain young lady that the staple diet of the inhabitants of Hawaii is ham and pineapple. "Really?" No, you fool! The next is pure gold. Another girl says to me, "Did you know they have crazy golf in Queenstown?" To which I reply, "No, it's not crazy golf, it's mini golf. They applied for a 'crazy' licence but got turned down on a technicality." "Really?" No, you absolute numpty!
Next stop: Vietnam via Hong Kong.
Choon of the day:
LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
Whale watching in Kaikoura
Swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura
Skydiving at Abel Tasman National Park
"Now, when I say 'Ooooo, 'ello sailor!', you go like this, alright?"
The Truman Track in Paparoa National Park
Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki
Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki
Strays at Rainforest Retreat, Franz Josef
Knights Point, en-route to Makarora
Strays jet-boating in Makarora
The road to Lake Wanaka
View from Kawarau Bridge, Queenstown
Kawarau Bridge, Queenstown
My first bungy jump at Kawarau Bridge, Queenstown
The legendary Fergburger, Queenstown
Strays on The Luge, Queenstown
Queenstown
The beach at sunset, Queenstown
Strays at Ballarat Trading Co, Queenstown
The Nevis Bungy, Queenstown
5-4-3-2-1 ... Nevis Bungy, Queenstown
View from plane flying over Lake Wakatipu en-route to Milford Sound
View from plane over Milford Sound
Coming in to land at Milford Sound
Milford Sound
Milford Sound
Milford Sound
Milford Sound
Milford Sound
Pre-quake Cathedral, Christchurch
