The morning we left Franz Josef behind, 8 of us had to be up at 7am to be picked up and taken to the Fox Glacier to jump out of an aeroplane! Well, not me, I was just going to watch and take photos! Incase you're wondering, yes the Fox Glacier mints are named after this glacier, I'm not really sure why though but it's a small claim to fame! Matt along with Flore, Nienke, Phillippa, Ella, Sarah and Ian had all put their names down for it before we even got to Franz Josef just in case the weather was nice. Matt hadn't actually planned on doing a sky dive but once he heard that the Fox glacier has been voted as the most scenic place in the world to do a tandem sky dive, he was soon persuaded. This also helped convince a few others as it was going to be fun going as a group. Although its very scenic, it's also notorious for bad weather conditions, with the Fox area getting the highest amount of rainfall in the whole of New Zealand, meaning they only really get 4-5 months a year of days suitable for sky diving. Somehow a minor miracle happened and we had a day that was perfect, there was barely a cloud in the sky! Nevertheless, it was extremely cold and everything was covered in frost. It was so icy in fact that Matt actually nearly slipped and fell down the stairs before he'd even made it out of the hostel, surely he couldn't be signed up to doing something as crazy as sky diving yet hurt himself on the stairs before he even got there!!
 
Everyone seemed slightly nervous but very excited at the same time . I was certainly glad I wasn't jumping even though they all tried pressuring me into it! I had brought our big camera along and was hoping to get pictures of everyone as they were falling through the sky. The instructor (and owner of the company) was called Mark and he was part South African, part American and part Kiwi, so his accent was quite a funny one. He was a really friendly guy though and instantly put everyone at ease! Unfortunately, all the rest of his crew had got snowed in at Arthur's Pass on their way back from a work trip to Christchurch so he was going to have to do all the jumps himself rather than 3 at a time so everything was going to take longer than expected. Everyone got kitted up in jumpsuits, hats, gloves and harnesses. The names were drawn randomly as there was a possibility not everyone would get to jump if Seagull needed us to get on the road, so no one knew who was going first. Then he announced that actually Matt was going first! He was a bit shocked and worried by this but at the same time it meant he would get it over with rather than waiting around so he was actually quite glad and it didn't give him a chance to get nervous . Matt was doing a jump from 16,000 feet along with Flore, Sarah and Ian whereas Ella, Phillippa and Neinke were doing 12,000 feet jumps. By doing a 16,000 foot jump you get 75 seconds of free fall and a much better view whereas a 12,000 foot jump gets you a 55 second free fall. 
 
Even I was quite worried as Matt hopped in the plane giving everyone a salute. As it was only about 4 degrees on the ground it was going to be -22 at 16,000 feet so it was going to get cold. After we had watched him take off, I jumped in the van, along with a few other people, and drove to the landing area which was about 7 kilometres away to see him land.
 
Matt's going to take over to tell you about the actual jump...The plane journey was fine apart from feeling rather strange being sat in such a small plane, not seat belted in, facing backwards and only being attached to the guy behind me. It did get extremely cold as we got higher very quickly. The views were amazing and as I was admiring it, Mark stuck a camera in my face and said "we're nearly at 5,000 feet so we're nearly half way! How do you feel?" Nearly half way???? I had thought we were nearly there with how high we were! After 12,000 feet we had to have oxygen masks and man it was cold, especially when he opened the door . As we slid towards the open door, I was thinking "oh my god!" But to be honest it wasn't as bad as I expected. After a quick nervous looking smile at the wing camera, we were off! What followed was one of the most amazing, crazy and cold 75 seconds of my life. You can't explain what it feels like but it was incredible. Quite quickly I noticed my nose and lips had gone numb and after about 30 or 40 seconds, my glasses had frosted over. I would later see that during the free fall with a wind chill of nearly -50, both of us had frost all over our faces so it's no wonder it was so cold. It was such a surreal feeling when he finally pulled the parachute and I could actually breath properly again. I got to steer the parachute for a while and pull some spirals, they were probably more scary than the free fall. It's easy to see why its the 2nd most scenic spot it the world to sky dive (number 1 is over Everest but you can't do tandem jumps there!) it was just incredible. I think it took less than 10 minutes to get to the ground and we both skidded along on our bums to land . Once unclipped and congratulated by Mark, I attempted to walk to see Lauraine, Ella, Phillippa and Ian who were stood watching, I had been that cold I could hardly walk properly and my hands didn't want to work at all. Never ever have I experienced cold anyway near as bad as that. It was insane, I almost felt in a bit of a daze after so much adrenaline and being so cold. We hopped in the van and drove back to the rest of the group where I got to warm up and chat with the others. Flore was up next and she had the same problem with the cold, nearly bursting into tears when she landed as her hands were so cold. This made it even more impressive how the instructor literally dropped me off and then jumped straight back into the plane to do it again, 6 times he did this until his team arrived back and were able to help him do the last 2 people together. 
 
Everyone loved it even though it was freezing and we then got to laugh at everyone's pictures and videos of them all pulling funny faces whilst free falling. Thankfully, I managed to get some brilliant shots of everyone (except Sarah, as the ground crew drove off without me!!!!) from the ground so they were very pleased . I was so proud of Matt and the others for being so brave and I was very happy to have them all back safely on the ground!
 
This delay meant we didn't set off for Wanaka until nearly 2pm instead of the scheduled 11am! We were so lucky that the rest of the bus had been as patient and hadn't minded waiting for all the sky divers to jump! Once on the road, Seagull decided to play a little game of his, everyone had to bet a dollar and guess how many one lane bridges there was between Fox and Wanaka. As a clue he told us it was between 9 and 999!! Some clue eh?! As we then drove along with Seagull counting the bridges when we crossed them, we travelled through the mountainous Haast Pass where we stopped at Ship Creek and Thundercreek Falls, or LSD Falls as Seagull likes to call them. This is because if you stare at the waterfall for 45 seconds and then look at the trees or your hand it makes your vision go all wobbly somehow so the trees move or your fingers bend, it's very strange. Next we passed Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka . Legend has it that the great chief Te Rakaihautu carved out the beds of these lakes with his mighty Ko, or digging stick, piling up the debris to form the mountain ranges around them. In actual fact, they were created by the large glaciers which pushed rocks, blocking the valleys. Lake Hawea is 35km long and as much as 410m deep, what's quite strange is that the lake is only 300m above sea level therefore the bottom 110m is actually below sea level. Lake Wanaka is 45km long and is as much as 312m deep, making it the third largest of the Southern Lakes.
 
Wanaka itself is both a summer holiday town and a base for the winter ski season so it is well visited all year round. Its only got a population of about 5000 people and it is generally regarded as the quieter, more chilled sister city to Queenstown. It certainly looked beautiful from what we could see driving in despite it starting to get dark already! Seagull had said that the drive into Wanaka was the of the most scenic drives and he wasn't wrong, it almost doesn't feel like a real place . Like most of New Zealand it just looks like a film set with every corner you go round being so picturesque. 
 
As we arrived so late, we weren't able to do any activities that evening. This was probably a good job as all the people who had done sky dives were absolutely shattered from all the excitement and everyone else was tired from sitting on the bus most of the day, so we had a couple of drinks in the bar with some food and got an early night. 
 
In the morning, we had the choice between climbing Mount Iron or visiting Puzzling World - this was an obvious choice for me as I had heard about Puzzling World about 9 years ago when friends of mine had travelled New Zealand and raved about it, so we went to check it out! There are a number of different rooms, each with their own style of puzzling feature, including holograms, faces that follow you, impossible structures and visual tricks. The room I liked most though was one you looked into through a window while 2 other people enter the room using the doors on either side . Somehow, despite the floor and ceiling seeming entirely parallel, the person on the left appears incredibly tall while the person on the right appears tiny! It was very confusing and even when Matt and I had a go at being inside, I still couldn't figure out how it worked! Another confusing room had its floor at a pretty steep angle so it was hard to walk in. Once in, you very quickly became disorientated and I had to keep looking at my feet to stop me falling over or feeling sick! Matt liked it in there as there was a pool table which somehow when you rolled the ball down it, it rolled back uphill towards you?!?! There was also a ride which saw you slide downhill in a chair except you slid uphill, along with a waterfall that flowed upwards?!?! All totally mind boggling!!
 
Outside was a giant rectangular maze with a tower in each corner. The basic idea was to visit each tower, there was an advanced option of visiting them in a particular order but we quickly realised that just getting to any of them was going to be hard enough without putting an order to them! Matt and I were joined by Flore and later Catriona . It took us quite a while to find all 4 and, despite being a little frustrating at times, it was really good fun! There were times though that I thought we were going to get stuck in there and miss the bus! Everyone that tried it loved and we all, except Ian, managed to find all 4 towers (he was incredibly frustrated not to have found the green one!) although we did discover a few days later that Cathal had actually cheated and crawled under the fences to get to some of the towers!!!!
 
We had been advised to check out the toilets while we were there, so feeling rather intrigued, we all went in to have a look, only to discover a mural on the back wall of Roman toilets with men sat next to one another 'using the facilities'. This picture extended into benches along the sides of the wall where you could sit on the pretend toilets and have your photo taken! Of course, Matt & Cathal took full advantage of this, dropping their trousers for a picture! Worryingly there is a sign on either side explaining that these are not real toilets so please don't use them! I can only imagine why this was necessary! Yuk!!!!
 
We were collected around 11am by Seagull and those who had gone into town or climbed Mount Iron and we were on our way again. This time headed for party central: Queenstown!!