Hi all
Again its been almost week, apolagies but heres what I'v been up to.
We had to get up early on saturday morning (hangover optional but most people including myself decided to go for one) to get the boat accross to the south island. It was only after getting to the ferry terminal that I realised that Kathryn must have overslept which could have been a problem as she had my ticket, luckily the staff checked my name and let me on. The crossing was delayed by 45 minutes as they had to unload a lorry which must have been loaded on first so all the cars had to be moved. It was quite a rough crossing once we were out of Wellington harbour (about an hour into the trip) so I stayed up on deck, talked to some people who had moved out from the UK and went back downstairs when it started to calm down to see 30 odd Kiwi experience travellers asleep all around bar area. Once off the boat we had a shortish drive (about 2hours) to Nelson where I said bye to Jono the driver and then had a chilled out afternoon and evening.
The next day I went to Abel Tasman national park for a tramp (Kiwi slang for hike). We had a coach there and then we got a watertaxi (basiclly a boat) to the start of the walk as there are no roads in the park. To get from the office to the sea we got on the boat (being pulled by a tractor) put on our lifejackets and they drove us to the water. On the way to the start of the walk we went to see some Seals which were hanging about on a few rocks then it was off to Tonga for the walk. It was a good walk along the coast with paths clinging onto the hills. It was really sunny which was nice and accross a wobbly suspension bridge past some rivers that wouldn't have looked out of place in Jurassic park. We got picked up from Anchorage by the watertaxi waited for some people who were on the boat in the morning (they never showed so they sent another boat to look for them). Then we powered it back to base being followed by George the lonely dolphin who was going from one side to the other of the boat. Then got the bus back to Nelson.
Monday I spent the day walking around Nelson, I went down into town and had a look around. Then to the coast and up a hill to the centre of New Zealand (apparently not the actual centre of New Zealand, but there was a sign saying I was in the centre). Then I got back to the hostel met up the new bus of people who had arrived teased Kathryn about missing the bus and a few of us went out for a few drinks, firstly in the hostel bar and then into town and had a really good laugh, and just made it to McDonalds (how sad) 40 seconds before they shut, so we got some freebies.
The next morning we were back on the Big Green Bus and went to Nelson Lakes national park for a short walk along the 2nd lake, which was fairly good and we could get some cheesy pictures. The water was really clear and we could see some eels at the bottom of the lake. Then it was off to Westport (stopping for lunch at some random place), just before we got there we stopped at a place that did jetboat trips, horse treking and Quadbiking. So off quadbiking I went. We had little 2 wheel drive 250cc quadbikes. We went on rocks, up hills on sand through rivers, through mud (only getting stuck twice). It was really good fun and quite a demanding course so you had to posistion the bike just right and lean at the right points but we were also able to get a bit of speed a couple of times. Then at the end we were able to power it along a lane where I spectaculary misjudged how deep a puddle was and ended up giving myself a good but cold shower. That evening people had decided to put Lord of the Rings on which for some reason I thought it would be good to watch, opps is all I can say to that.
So yesterday, I think thats where I am up to. We left the small town of Westport (well large town by New Zealand standards) and went to a cliff face to some rocks which are called the pancake rocks because of the way they look. Had lunch there and then went to Greymouth which is the largest city on the west coast, where we had to pick up supplys for the fancy dress party that night (bad joke coming up alert). The theme was we could wear anything made mainly out of bin liners (get thinking about what the bad joke could be). We got to the poo pub as it is affectionally called and met the 83 year old landlord "Les" and the filmcrew who were doing a documentry about him (should air next week over here). The pub just a little bit away from the middle of nowhere, so we all went down to the beach, played some touch rugby and then went to work on our outfits. Barry, Ronan, Gillian and me all worked together and went respectivley as a pint of Guiness, a snowman, an i-pod and Osama Bin-Liner (I warned you). We got filmed a bit getting ready, then it was off to the party where we got to see everyone else including the all blacks, Harry Potter and our driver Dallas who had gone as a fairy. We all had a really good night some people got worse for wear (not me for once) and after the party went to the beach for a little while.
This morning we said bye to Les and the filmcrew (after refilming some spontanious shots) and headed to Franz Josef. We stopped at a little place for brekfast which had a metric clock up (apparently saves them wages) and lots of random signs all the over the place. Once we got to Franz Josef we did a little walk to see the Glacier from a far and then checked into out hostel which has a spa. (now thats flashpacking).
Bye for now
New Zealand's Flag
Map of New Zealand