On Monday I went on the most incredible 3 hour scenic flight in a tiny plane, which went just about everywhere - up and around Mount Cook (highest mountain in NZ) and Mount Tasman (2nd highest), over the top of the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, passed Mount Aspiring (3rd highest) down and into Milford Sound before flying back up over Queenstown to Wanaka. The scenery was breathtaking and once again I was blessed with perfect weather - clear blue skies for most of the flight and very smooth air (apparently even a small amount of turbulence can really turn the small planes into rollercoasters!). The only regret I had was not going to the toilet before taking off - it was a real relief to finally land and make a mad dash to the loo.... Click HERE to see the photos.
I followed that up by going on one of the most scenic one day walks in the New Zealand, called the Rob Roy track. The walk only takes around 4 hours, during which you climb up a fairly steep sided glacial valley, at times alongside a river and at other times through the forest before you emerge in front of some awesome alpine scenery - waterfalls, rockfaces and glaciers galore. I even saw an avalanche higher up the mountain. And, again, the weather was perfect!
Anyway, my luck with the weather seems to have ended for a while now - it has been raining pretty much all the time since Wednesday now, during which time I have moved on from Wanaka to Queenstown. I had to cancel a jet-boating trip yesterday due to the weather, but thankfully it was a bit brighter this morning, which gave me the chance to say...
...3, 2, 1, BUNGY!!!!!
Yes, in a moment of lunacy I decided to throw myself off a cable car suspended 134metres above a river gorge. Thankfully someone had attached a giant elastic band to my legs! What a rush! The jump was so high that you had time to scream, draw breath and then scream again before you got to the bottom and bounced most of the way back up!
For those of you who know Bristol, let me put this into context. The road across Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol is 75metres above the River Avon. The towers are 25metres high. So if you were to stack the towers on top of each other in the middle of the bridge and then jump off, you would be nearly as high as I was this morning before I jumped. Total insanity - I'm off to have a cup of tea now to get over it!
Photos from Queenstown and Wanaka are HERE.
