Time to Say Goodbye...

Thursday 9th April

I hate making decisions. I don’t think I’m indecisive, well maybe I am, but I like to be well informed before I decide to do or buy something. That’s why it takes so long for me to find a restaurant to eat in; I need to know everything about every possible restaurant before I can decide on one specific place. It’s the same with pretty much everything I buy – I need to know everything about it before I will even consider buying something and even when I know everything humanly possible about the item in question, I check every shop and website for the cheapest price. I don’t really know why I said all that, it doesn’t really contribute to this Blog post, maybe it does, in some indirect way – today we went River Boarding, which I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do, I didn’t even research it, but I just went along because everyone else was going. Yup, I’m a sucker for peer pressure, or so it seems!

Anyway, we went Mad Dog River Boarding – basically it’s like white water rafting, but you do it on a body board so you’re in the water the entire time. It wasn’t something that I was particularly interested in, but everyone else was going and it did look quite fun! We met at the River Rafting shop and we got a mini bus out to the Canyon where you get all your gear on. You should know that wetsuits are super attractive...nat! So yeah, we got our wetsuits and our little booties on and then it got even better, we got lifejackets and my personal favourite – helmets! I know that you need them, for safety reasons, but helmets are possible the most annoying thing on this planet – they are so uncomfortable and I find tem really restrictive, I don’t like not being able to turn my head. In fairness, you really do need to wear helmets, especially for activities like Black Water Rafting, where the first thing I did when in the cave was smack my head off one of the stalactites, yikes, but really, I just wanted to have a moan about helmets. When we all met the required safety standard we went to the start of the rapids – quite a lot of walking occurred, which I was obviously annoyed about, because I hate moving. We started our River Boarding trip by showing the instructors how confident we were in the water/swimming around like idiots while the instructors kicked water in our faces and shouted at us. That was G-R-E-A-T! After that traumatic ordeal our entire group decided to skip the first 80m, at least I think it was 80m, all I know is that we skipped the part that required the most effort, which is pretty much the way I live my life! Instead of doing the difficult part we went straight to the rapids so that worked out quite well. It’s actually pretty self explanatory – we were on body boards and we were going in and out of the rapids – it wasn’t really strenuous, but you did have to work to stay in the middle of the river. Some of the guides were a bit annoying/mean (they would shout at you if you weren’t in the right place, which they probably need to do, but they could try being a bit more polite, everyone has to start at some point) but the main guide, Arnold, was this massive German guy, he was properly ripped and he had a shaved head – a total machine, who was actually really nice and really softly spoken! So we hung out with Arnold on the way down the river!

When the rapids finished we just floated down the river and then we stopped to jump off some rocks, which was actually really fun, I jumped twice, I would have gone more but you had to climb up a big rock before you can jump and that is pretty impossible in flippers. Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about the flippers! They are even more annoying than helmets! I think mine were too tight so they really hurt and trying to swim with them on feels really unnatural, as does walking. Walking with flippers on is so difficult! I have a new found appreciation for ducks... and deep sea divers, I guess. After the rock jumping we went down river and had a go on the jet ski – you climbed onto a raft thing that was attached to the back of the jet ski and the guy drove you around for a while, he did 360 turns and stuff, so that was really cool! After that we climbed up about 1,000,000 steps (a running theme in New Zealand) and then we slid down an old Gold Mining shaft thing on our boards, basically it was a really high slide, so that was cool, I managed to do it twice the second time round I was kneeling, which was fun because you skim across the river. It would have been fun to do it a third time, but I thought about it and decided that the stairs might defeat me and besides, everyone was getting ready to leave!
Once we were all dry and cosy we went back to Queenstown, to get a Fergburger! Today I tried the Cock Cajun, which was a seriously yummy chicken burger. It had all the classics and so much more – here’s the Menu description – “Grilled chicken tenderloins rubbed with Cajun spices, cooled with a lemon yoghurt, lettuce, tomato, red onion and aioli.” Yummy yummy yummy I’ve got Ferg in my tummy! It was seriously good – I didn’t get the tomato or red onion and I wasn’t sure if I would like it – it sounded very fancy, but it was an absolute beauty!

After our day of river activities we were all starving, my burger was plenty, but Josh decided that a normal Ferg wasn’t enough – he needed his own special Ferg. He started with a Big Al burger, it’s the biggest burger on the menu, but he decided to pretty much double it! He ended up paying $22.00 for the biggest burger I have ever seen! If you have seen my Facebook pictures then you have probably seen it – it looks like a regular burger, on steroids. It was literally half the size of his head... and he ate it! I had my doubts, I really didn’t think he would finish it, but he totally destroyed that burger! He even managed some chips, which is another accomplishment as Ferg chips are also monstrously big – bigger really is better in Ferg! I wasn’t sure if I should be disgusted or impressed with Josh – I think I was both, but mainly I was in awe at his unbelievable ability to consume ridiculous amounts of food. I feel it should also be mentioned that this all happened in a seriously short space of time, under 13 minutes I think! High Five!

After Ferg we took some time to let our bodies recover and then we all went to Pete and Anthony’s room for a few drinks. Josh had mentioned that he could down three pints at once, so naturally we held him to this. He took his place on the bedroom floor and Anthony, Rob and some Canadian guy called Matt started to pour the pints straight into his mouth. Again, I wasn’t sure if I should be disgusted or impressed! It was really something, he actually downed all three pints, at once! Yes, there were a few slip ups, the most notable was Josh coughing beer all over James and his camera but he still managed it! He didn’t even stop there – he kept drinking all night – I really was impressed with Josh – I have never seen anyone consume as much food/alcohol in one night! Maybe that’s not a good thing, but I dare you to watch and not be impressed!

After watching Josh put grown men to shame, we headed to a club called Subculture, which was underground and not the best place I’ve ever been. Actually, I didn’t really like it at all. It was a drum and bass night and I don’t really like drum and bass, so it probably wasn’t the best place for me to go! It was also full of shady characters – lots of older people and lots of boys with long greasy hair and big army boots with shorts. I’m not saying that wearing shorts and army boots makes you a bad person, but it just wasn’t my scene. After a while Josh and I went to the Base bar, Altitude, to see if we could find Pete (he disappeared) but we couldn’t so we just went back to Subculture. Eventually I just left and went back to bed – I sound like a bit of a saddo, but really, drum and bass is probably the only music I just cannot dance to!

I had a really good day and a really good night, but it was quite sad too because it was Josh and Jess’ last night with the Posse! I will actually really miss those two; they were some seriously amazing people! I always think its nice when brothers and sisters get on, plus they were really, really funny and genuinely nice, which is always good! So yep, today was another amazing day in Queenstown!

Xx