Kiwi Experience

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Not much to report from yesterday as we basically drove from Dunedin back to Queenstown to catch our connection to Christchurch. We did go via Baldwin Street, the world's steepest street, located in Dunedin. It WAS steep but we all walked up to the top for the obligatory photo. Very glad to have stayed in the lovely YHA this time and not horrible Discovery Lodge.
Today was meant to be our final Stray bus ride but at 8am this morning there were crowds of us trying to fit onto a rather small bus. Our names weren't on the list (they never are!! Why? Why?) so the bus went without us. There is only one national bus a day and no trains and Queenstown is packed so hardly any accommodation to be found. At the prospect of having to spend a night at Discovery Lodge, we managed to get ourselves onto the Kiwi Experience bus, which is basically the rival bus company to Stray. KE is a party bus and tends to have a younger, gap year crowd. The trip was really good though. Everyone except the Stray people were asleep nearly the whole journey. This is typical apparently - party at night and sleep through NZ by day. We stopped to view Mount Cook, the highest peak in NZ and made Christchurch a couple hours ahead of the Stray bus. Our hostel is a 15min walk out of town but SO nice. It is like a house rather than a hostel so we have a few days to relax before flying to Oz on Wednesday.

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