All Blacks and Christchurch

This is going to be brief because I'm lazy.

Drove up to Christchurch (which is now demolished thanks to an earthquake) and went to an All Blacks game, which was awesome because they were playing Australia (rivals) and they are arguably the best rugby team in the world. They won so it was a lot of fun. Christchurch was a nice city with good night life. On the drive home we stopped at the Moeraki Boulders, which is a beach filled with almost perfectly round boulders (like 5 diamater). Very strange but very fun to play around on and jump on to dodge the waves.

The next weekend we drove the Queenstown which is on the edge of Fiordland. It was a nice drive with plenty of curvy roads. If you get carsick DO NOT drive this road. One of our friends gets carsick so she had a fun car ride. In Queenstown we stayed at this hostel/motorcamp that did not have heated rooms and you had to pay $5 for a blanket. We tried to get blankets but nobody was in the office so we decided to go into town and get them when we got back (which was maybe 30-40 minutes later). Lucky for us the office was closed when we got back. Needless to say this meant we were in for a cold night. There was a small heater in the room that would get the room fairly warm, but it would then turn off every 20 minutes or so and someone would have to turn off the heater, outlet, and reset it to turn it back on. It was an incredibly cold night that night but we survived.

The next day we headed into town and signed up to jump the Nevis. The Nevis is one of the worlds highest bungy jumps, with a 134m (440ft) freefall. Why anyone would want to jump off a perfectly safe structure with only a rope to catch them is crazy, but we did it and it was the most exhilarating thing I have ever done. To do the bungy, you first have to take a bus up this incredibly steep and narrow dirt road on the side of a mountain and then get into the harness. Once in the harness they then put you on a cart that takes you out to the Bungy structure, which is suspended on cables over a valley. You then get to hang out in the structure (which part of it has a see through floor) for as long as it takes to get the people ahead of you to go. Since the place is only hanging by cables it rocks and sways in the wind, only adding to the jitters you are undoubtedly experiencing. Then they call your name and strap your feet in and you get to walk out to a ledge with no bars, handles, or anything else holding you back. Just a ledge and a rope attached to your feet. There is a guy standing behind you telling you how to jump and then counts down from 3. This whole time your toes are literally over the edge with just your heels keeping you on the ground and you are staring down about 500 feet to the ground. He counts down from 3 and you have to jump. And you do. And then it's the biggest rush you can experience. You reach upwards of 120km/h during your freefall which last all of 10 seconds. All you hear is the wind rushing past you and whatever thoughts are going through your head. Then all of a sudden you feel the rope catch and you are moving upwards. Then you are going down again. This happens two more times until you come to an almost stop (you're still moving up and down but nothing dramatic seeing as you just jumped 134m). Then they lower a rope down that attaches to the jump cable and begin to raise you up. What's really cool about the jump is that the second "fall" is that it is a 70m drop, which is stil 30m higher than most of the other bungy jump spots in Queenstown. Bungy jumping is one of the most fun things I have ever done, and is definitely the biggest rush I have ever had. We were all still so excited and ancy even that night because we had done it. Now I need to try sky diving so I can compare. But to anyone reading this, if you get the chance to go bungy jumping, do it! Do not pass up the opportunity.