DAY EIGHT

Today we travelled about an hour out of Queenstown to a place called Glenorchy. Here a lot of The Lord of the Rings was filmed so it was very beautiful. We split into two groups: one group went for a little tour around the area while the other went on a jet boat ride. I went on the tour first, which was very pretty. It was overcast again today, but somehow that just suites the scenery of New Zealand. We saw some amazing mountains again with really nice little farms and some beautiful forests. The guide showed us a few places where The Lord of the Rings was actually filmed! I’ve decided that as soon as I’ve finished writing this blog, I am going to go and watch all three of the movies to compare what I’ve seen with what’s in the movies! Pretty much everyone decided on tour that they would watch the movies again because you really do feel the need to visit Hobbitland again!

After we took a short walk in a beautifully green forest, we walked to the river to swap over with the other group who was on the jet boats. There were three boats that took half of our group, which was about 45 people. I got in the back seat with AJ and Bec Hull with Daniel and Jordan next to us. We had an absolute ball! If you’ve ever been on a jet boat then you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t then I highly recommend that you go on one because they are SO FUN!!! I can’t remember the name of the river we went down but it was what they call “braided”, which means that instead of having just one channel of water, there are several interweaved channels over a larger area. And this jet boat, which went about 80 to 90km/hr weaved in between these braided channels. It was actually pretty scary because some of these channels looked no wider than the boat! I kept thinking that we would hit the rock of the bottom and yet we never did! The boat also did tricks such as 360° turns. Those were thrilling! The first one was a bit scary; it felt like a dreamworld ride or something, only you weren’t strapped in and on a track where nothing could go wrong! We also got incredibly wet because water is constantly spraying up over the edge of the boat. The three jet boats decided that it would be a game to see who could get the others most wet. The teachers’ boat got ours pretty good and all of us got totally SOAKED! But withing a few minutes we were dry again from the wind blasting at us. I would have to say that the jet boat ride was the funnest thing on the whole tour!

Back at the accommodation, tonight was the No Talent Contest, an annual event for all band tours. Of course it was hilarious! The winning act has to be the act with the least amount of talent, so basically the point is to get up there and make a huge fool of yourself. We did an act with the cup game where you bang a sequence with cup on a table. Not too much talent there. It failed miserably, which is the whole point. We didn’t end up doing too badly, getting fifth or something like that. The winning act was by Borg who got Jessie and Coxy to wax his legs while he sang “Last Day on Earth” by Kate Miller-Hidke. It was a classic! Definitely a first place getter! That night was good, especially with the absolutely terrible puns that Coxy and Declan made throughout the show. Good times!