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Published: February 13th 2010
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It was nice to sleep in since our departure time was 9am. We got picked up a little late I believe since the other 46 passengers stayed at another hostel; there was a waiting list to get on the bus so it took a little longer. We rode for about 45 minutes to Richmond to get food supplies and breakfast for anyone who hadn’t eaten yet.
There was about 20 extra minutes so I stopped by the jewelry store to see what kind of wedding band I would want. There are many options since my engagement ring is my “Interim Ring” as Pete calls it. I can either get what I would really want and leave it back in the US while we return to China next year or just get something that would match this ring and is inexpensive until we return to the US for good. Then I would upgrade at that time. I really do like my ring.
Our next stop was Nelson Lakes National Park at Lake Rototi. When we arrived it was overcast but after being there for 40 minutes the sun decided to come out. The oldest eels in NZ live in this
lake. It was beautiful with the mountains surrounding the lake. Some passengers jumped off the dock into the water but we didn’t since the water was FREEZING and it was cloudy.
Then we rode for about another hour until we stopped for lunch in Murchison. Pete had a ham wrap, I had a chicken wrap, we shared a pottle of chips(fries) and orange soda. No ICE CREAM today as we had it yesterday.
During our next hour we played an ice breaker game with all the passengers on the bus, 50 total. The people sitting on the aisle moved one seat every 45 seconds. You had to give your name, what country you are from and a random question from our bus driver, Lauren. We found out most people were from England, Sweden, Denmark, a few from Holland, Switzerland and Canada; we were the only 2 Americans. The random questions ranged from: what did you wish you packed that you didn’t, which celebrity would you like to smack, if you could be anyone for the day who would it be(me Michelle Obama and Pete said Barack Obama-Crazy since we were about 10 people apart).
Pete has been wanting to buy new sunglasses for about the last year. Well as of today he will need to buy them since we broke them in half. That means we both broke our sunglasses on this trip but mine were cheap from Payless last summer in the US and Pete’s were about 5 years old.
Then we rode on for about another hour stopping at Buller Adventure Tours where jet boating, horse back riding and quads were all available to do, but we passed on all of them. We dropped the passengers off that wanted to partake in the activities and then made our way into the town of Westport, our final destination of the day.
We stayed at Bazil’s Hostel in a double room for $65NZD for the night. We had put in $6NZD each for a BBQ dinner it was quite tasty: hamburgers with grilled onions, sausage and potato salad . We haven’t yellow mustard anywhere in NZ as they only eat honey mustard and that isn’t as good on a hamburger as yellow mustard.
Before dinner Pete and I ventured around the little town of Westport. We walked down the main street and found the library which had free WiFi but was only open for 10 more minutes. Then we walked to the beach which turned out to be much further than it looked on the map. After wandering around for 2 hours we made our way back to the hostel just in time for the BBQ.
After dinner we were in our room by 8pm, read our books and I was out cold by 9pm.
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Caitlin
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Wow. What a beautiful photo of you, Elyse, on the beach in Westport.