Christchurch to Nelson

We arrived in Christchurch after a long drive. There was alot of trouble trying to find everyone accomodation, all the hostels were jam packed, but we found somewhere not too far from the town centre.
Christchurch had had a series of serious earthquakes recently, and you could see this is some areas, but at this time there was no major damage, just tumbled building every now and then. (this was about a month before the major one in the centre that took hundreds of lives.)
We stumbled into our hostel where we were staying just for that night, then we would have to find somewhere else to stay of hope they had another room that would open up for our last  2 nights there. We were shattered after the long bus ride and had seen a subway accross the road.
I must have been tired, because i had a little paddy, i dont even know what about now, probably about the stress of nearly not finding a room, and lauren with no food = utter downfall. We checked into our room, which for the first time was a twin room, not a dorm. This was more expensive but due to my sudden state of ridiculousness was probably best. They had some old school chunky computers, so we had our daily quick check on facebook, and then went across the road for a subway, and more importantly , two bottles of wine.
We went back to our room, and got merry.
This was one of those times i was glad to be there with my best friend. Boy, can we wind each other up sometimes, but there are very few people in the world who know how to handle me when i have one of my, what we liked to call, "episodes", and she is one of them. Food and booze, that'll just about do it.

We went to sleep (or passed out) and walked into town the next day. Christchurch is meant to be the most british town in Newzealand. I think i could understand this. It felt farmliiar, but i dont know why. We went to the main square, where the Cathedral then stood (it came down along with everything else in the earthquake), a market, shops, internet cafes, tourist information centre and other buildings. There was a Shopping centre just round the corner, and lots of cafes and things. We went into the information centre to see what we could do, and before we knew it we had booked a jet boat ride, tickets to the art gallery and to the Ron Mueck exhibition (yay!), and also to go punting up the river (why not!). So with the 2 days we had there full we were quite content.

We also met up with some friends from school, young Phillip and chino and their friends. It was the strangest thing seeing them! and what a bizarre night.


We then went on to kaikoura for a night. This was a cute little town on the coast, most known for its whale watching and swimming with dolphins. Ideally we wanted to do both, but with a lack of money we decided to go with the whale watching as thats not something we'll get to do again any time soon. It was a nice little afternoon and we saw loooads of dolphins and a sperm whale, yay! That night we had a bbq with everyone on the bus back at the hostel.

Then we went onto Nelson, one of my favorite places we went to! Nelson is quite a quirky little town near the beach, with fun little shops, restaurants and bars. I fell in love with a little bead shop which i dragged holly to and spent a good half an hour in! There were also rivers that run through Nelson that are perfect to go to for an afternoon cool down, and to sunbath on the rocks. Our hostel was also above a pub, which was pretty good.
We also did our amazing Sky Dive over the Abel Tasman national park of 16,500ft! AHHHHHH!!!!
This really was the most amazing feeling. ever. Again, we got picked up by a van and a bubbly woman with another couple, a boyfriend and girlfriend travelling together who were really nice, and we drove off to the skydive place. We came to a small airfield and as we walked in they talked us through the safety things and showed us a video. As much as we wanted to, we didnt get the photos and the video, because it was about £100 more, so we just got the standard sky dive. We had to go into another room where we put on a sexy jump suit and a helmet with plastic goggles attatched. Me and holly were tickled at each others appearances so took some quick photos. We had to wait for another group to go up first, so we watched them go up in their tiny little plane. Oh my god. That looked scary in itself. Im not big on flying, and that creeped me out more than the jump!!! We watched them go up, up, up, then eventually saw a small dot coming down. The closer they got, the more we heard their excited cries and woo's, then they landed screaming and laughing. Then the others came down. They all looked so happy and excited i could not wait! ahh!!! Then it was our turn! We waited for our Sky dive man people to come out, who we would be strapped to... oh please give me a really sexy guy.. please... everyone else had their guy, i will still waiting. Then i heard his voice. "hello... My name is Scruffy" oh god. no. not him. hes mental. He looked like he had been electrocuted but i thought hey, if he can do it, so can i.. that or i die...
So we got in the creepy tiny plane. I thought it would have seats along the side faceing each other, but instead there were two metal planks along the middle, and you had to go in backwards and slide on up. Our men then strapped themselves to our backs, me with a mentalist, and they talked us through what we had to do next. Why do they always do this? tell us important things when im clearly not listening to a word they're saying! This time i couldnt even hear the guy the plane was so loud! and i was staring our the window. Shit we were so high up! We were so high i liturally thought we were going somewhere!! How is it possible to jump out of something THIS high!?!?! Jeez christ.
So the couple went out first. Just like that. They shuffled forwards... then they were just GONE out of a fucking PLANE! OH MY GOD YES THIS IS SO CRAZY! then it was my turn! fuzzy of scruffy or whatever his name was shuffled me forward, crikey, and then OUT WE WENT!!!! DOWNNN DOWNNNN DOWNNN! This time we had a 75 second free fall! THAT IS HUGE!!!! Im so glad i didnt have a man taking photos, because i could feel my face being whipped around in all directions, i could imagine my mouth just open wide, i wasnt sure if i was dribbling or not, but it was INCREDIBLE! After the shock of jumping our of a plane the feeling was amazing! Then all of a sudden it had stopped, and we were floating. The parachute was up, (YES IT WORKED), and we were floating down. I then realised how amazing the view was. The world was at a curve, i was so high up, and so happy, so free! like a bird! oh so merry. it was amazing. Then fuzzpot goes, "you want to do some spins?" Yeah why not!!! Ouch. We did a few spins, and oh my god i thought my groin was going to split in to! I thanked god i didnt have balls, then he stopped chuckling like a psychopath. "You want to go again?" No i did not want to go again, but oh boy, we went again. And there was that pain in my groin. Jesus, how do i humour this man, do i laugh or do i scream!? So i screamed. and he stopped laughing again. Oh yes its all very funny when a girl can never use her vagina again.
But the view was amazing, the best thing ive ever seen, the best feeling in the world. It was all so amazing! I instantly loved the sky dive more than the bungy and never wanted it to stop!
Then land was coming in closer, and closer... Scruffles was telling me to do something with my legs for when we land, so i put them out straight and he shouted OH NOT THAT MUCH.. jesus man make your mind up.. and then i landed on my arse. Or oh his lap, god knows, i was too happy to care. We got up and he released me and i felt amazing. Holly then came down and we skipped along merrily. Then we went back into the office, got out of the ridiculous overalls and then went into the main waiting area waiting to go back for our well deserved victory pint. Then the best thing ever happened.. The woman.. i cant remember her name.. who picked us up came out with beer! free beer! YEAH BOY! We drank them happy as can be and then went back to our hostel.