Warning: this is a long one, however, has something for everyone including petrol heads and engineers! I might to Milford Sound as a separate blog even though it is day 2 of the Queenstown trip.

We are staying in Queenstown for 3 nights, which is the longest I have stayed anywhere since taking off from home, what a treat!

The day starts with Fio, Fee and myself doing a Walshy workout, so good thank you Heather, this has now been shared to Canadians’, Polish, Germans’, English and Austrailians’ lol 🙂 – you should have patented it!

Have I mentioned that today is Anna’s, and following on from last nights festivities the day started with a birthday cake, candles, team card and a rendition of Happy Birthday to you in the shared kitchen much to the surprise and amusement of another family in there! A banner in the bus most of this organised by her roomie Ellen and I think Martina got the beautiful fresh cream cake. Issue: No one smokes, no matches, no lighters, we asked lots of people outside to no avail ……….so incoming warning I thought I might have a good (questionable) idea………I get some paper out of my book and after a couple of failed attempts, my folding was too thick,…..…..I lit it on the toaster, the cake had gone outside ….what ….everyone was panicking I would set off the fire alarm so had to blow it out and do it again, what a hoot, anyway, Anna came in the middle of the unfolding disaster and the 2nd lit taper chasing the cake, it was a hoot, plus, I had to say to young children beside us not to try this at home as it was very dangerous and I was a very irresponsible adult etc etc and yes I am rolling my eyes – flipsake is anything easy! Anna is really touched and then we load up onto the bus to the poster!

Onwards to Queenstown, we get there around midday, everyone hops off for lunch, a few of us are booked on adventures this afternoon, including myself, of course! We will stay in town, the rest will go and check in after lunch, some poor soul has to deal with my case, which has become James’s nemesis, however, at least he will escape from this one at the end of the trip, he did suggest laterally very under his breath and quite understandably that my case was fatherless hahahahah! I have learnt my lesson I should have split my luggage over two cases, or gone wild and just packed less, bought less, yada yada!

We went up to the street food trucks, I know Joanne, I can hear your shock! Get me going rogue! I got the most amazing Ramen, without the egg, I just can’t cope with an egg in my soup, each to their own I guess.

Anyway, it dawns on me that having lunch, a spicy ramen might not have been the best idea when I am about to be propelled and bounced around the place in the “Shotover jet” in the “Wall to Wall Canyons”. Yes readers maybe not at all wise! To give you an idea we will be travelling at around 90km – yes baby! Skimming around boulders – eh! Hold on? Doing 360 degree spins – what! And gravity defying stunts – dear Lord why didn’t I read the brochure first…..I hear you Samantha Snowball – why change a habit of a lifetime? lol – where were you when I needed you? Uncle James had this as a highly recommend so that is good enough for me…..I blinking LOVED it! Get me into training this could be my new career calling in life! I tell you what that wakes up the old brain cells and adrenaline. Unfortunately, when we were there they were in the process of changing over filming/pic providers and we were told not to bring cameras on board for obvious reasons, probably could have, so 3 of the below pics are screenshots just to give you an idea if what we did.

The Ngai Tahu, the Māori people of this land, and the proud owners of Shotover Jet. Over centuries the Ngai Tahu formed a special connection to the Kimiākau (Shotover River). The Awa (river) is part of who they are, and we are introduced to the long history of the area, and they share the beauty and excitement of the Kimiakau!

Here’s something for the petrol heads! These boats are made of maximum speed, strength and manoeuvrbility, the boats are powered by twin 350 Mercruiser V8 engines, producing a combined 700 horsepower. Propulsion, steering and control are provided through two HAMILTON (there will be more about Mr Hamilton in a future blog) 212 Jet units, thrusting 760 litres of water per second, Oh! I say Matron! Water is draw in through two intakes at the bottom of the boat, two jet units containing internal propellers then compress and drive the water per second out through two jet nozzles at the rear, at nearly 400 litres of water per jet unit. It’s the force of the water that propels the jet boat. Steering is achieved by turning the jet nozzles, which changes the direction of the water forced out the back of the jet boat. It can also brake and reverse using deflectors and thrust buckets, similar to a jet aircraft. I can personally attest to the amazing work of art this boat is and all of the above – incredible – what it lacks in looks (in my view) it makes up in abundance with performance :-).

While Ellen, Anna and myself go on what is a relatively tame activity compared to Miss Fio, she is booked on a Canyon Swing, I swear that girl is going to be the end of me, my nerves are wrecked thinking about it, there was an option for me to go up and watch, eh! Nooooo I would have needed the cardiac ambulance, thankfully I couldn’t do two things at once…….Most normal people would do it once, but, hey deal of the day she was able to do a 2nd one for just $69 – This one she did from a handstand, as you do! The first one she did from a back flip……what the actual! This caused the room to broadly turn into a spiral which she said made it spin like crazy when she righted so at that point she needed to close her eyes as was making her dizzy – all caught on the go pro! It does look amazing I just couldn’t do that. After my tandem sky dive experience years ago it’s just a no. Being that out of control. Ooooh no it just gives me the heebie geebies.

I go up to our accommodation whitch is at the top of a killer hill, it is really cute, The Scenic Suites, it is like accommodation I would imagine you’d might get in Austria or Switzerland.

Quick turn around and the 4 very tame hooligans go to a pub nearby and get pre-birthday dinner drinks, James has kindly booked a nice Italian restaurant (with no sign of burgers in sight on the menu!) for us all to meet at at 6pm.

We have a really early and long day to Milford Sound tomorrow, 4.5hrs drive each way if we are lucky for a 2 hour ferry journey on the sound, so we have dinner and head back through some street entertainment.

Milford Sound – Separate Post

Day 3 at Queenstown turned out to be a bit of a disappointment initially as I had tried and ultimately failed to do a paraglide, however, I ended up just having a slow nice easy morning with Fio, a wee bit of shopping and I found a great gadget for Fio in a shop called Small Planet, the best outdoor shop I have ever encountered, a camping salt, pepper, spice shaker, so it has been a running joke about what Fio has in her luggage, she generally has the most off the wall things that no normal person has though of or has made room for, all of which has been blinking amazingly useful, I have learnt so much and when I find this golden nugget, not a chance would you have guessed what it was, she had been saying when you cook for yourself here there never is any salt or pepper so she was so pleased with it. Neither She or James who is an avid camper guessed it! When we meet up after my disappointment and to be fair to the lovely Ellen she wanted to give me her spot (it’s a long story but she felt she had taken mine, as I explained I was just annoyed an the incompetence more that the loss of the experience this was an extra for me so no biggie and the last time I had a tandem experience it took me a year to get over it so maybe my miss was my mercy! Fio had managed to source James’s hat…more about that later too.

Fio and I walked round the beautiful Queenstown gardens I feel so stiff today I think it was that long journey yesterday that did it. Everyone meets at 12.30 and off we go again, this time to Twizel and it really feels like the end is in sight 😦