After sleeping most of Saturday night, this morning I felt like I could handle people once again. Today was one of the most anticipated days of the holiday. Today was the adrenalin day.

I had a hasty breakfast and walked about 100m up the road to a place called the station. This is a rendezvous point for many tour operating companies and it was the pickup point for the Shootover Jet. The pictures of the red speedboat with screaming people are so common in tourist offices and hostels they're like coca-cola ads in Christmas. I had to try the Shootover jet ride out of curiosity from the sheer volume of ads. Call it effective marketing!

When we arrived at the river the crew handed us some waterproofs and advised us to wear any hats or beanies. As usual mine was still packed in the pack at the hostel and for the first time I regretted it. We went on the speedboat and prepared for the fun. The river water was shallow, but it didn't seem to matter much because we soon started whizzing around the canyon.

The speedboat sped across the river turning along the winding waterway trying to keep as close as possible to the canyon walls. I was at the edge of and was convinced that there wasn't any risk of smashing in any canyon. The only scary thing was the cold penetrating my skull. Sometimes, when we arrived at certain open spaces the driver started making a circular motion with his index finger and gave the boat a 3600 spin. It was like doing a handbrake turn with the car. Before I boarded the boat I was concerned that I might loose my glasses in theses spins but the fear was completely unfounded. We spent about 20 minutes on the jetboat and the ride was good fun. For $99NZD it was worth doing at least for the sake of the scenery if not for the adrenalin rush.

[As skydiving was the best activity of the holiday it has a dedicated post]

After skydiving I returned to Queenstown still high from the skydive buzz. Without even stopping at the hostel I went up the Skyline Gondola for a bird's eye view of Queenstown and after snapping some pictures I took the chairlift up to the top of the luge (sledge) track for a luge ride. At first the luge seemed quite a babyish thing to do, but after the first ride I changed my idea and ended up using all of my 6 rides.

On my way down to the village in the gondola I met a 17 year old Australian who was on holiday by himself. After he shared the pains of being alone and underage he told me his name was Tray. I thought, damn that's a stupid name to give to a child, his parents must be waiters to call him that. I passed some milder comment on his name trying to hide my disgust, and then he told me that his name is TrOy not Tray. While still not the best of names it makes much more sense. This is all you need to know about Australian accents.

Having spent the whole day without any food I went to try the famous Gourmet Burger place, Fergburger. This is an epic piece of culinary here in Queenstown and something many people talk about. It is one of the best burgers I've ever tasted. I had a classic with Swiss Cheese which was one of the smallest on the menu. Even though it was one of the smallest it was still big enough to satisfy a hungry Mike. The only pity of not having another day in Queenstown was that I couldn't have another Fergburger.

Back to the hostel I had a shower and a short nap and hit the bars at about 9.00pm. Here I met another Australian who was here for his brother's wedding. After our mutual dissatisfaction with the ratio in the hostel's pub, Altitude, we proceeded to leave the pub in search for a better one. When we were going out this man smashed into the glass door because he didn't see it. The bouncer couldn't hide his disgust and I couldn't stop laughing. This was the best thing that happened that night.

View the complete Queenstown Gallery here

Coming next: Skydiving in Queenstown