Blogs from Lake Mahinapuha, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Our overnight stop in Westport was a brief one and we were back on the road at 9am. Our next stop was Lake Mahinapau, renowned on the kiwi bus for being in the middle of no-where. The only activities here were a group meal and a fancy dress party - Andrea our bus driver announced our theme would be Pimps & Prostitutes. We had a couple of stop-offs on the way; the first at Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks. These are formed by a fast weathering mineral layer in between harder rock forming a pancake stack effect. Our lunch stop at Greymouth provided a chance to get our costumes (and a traditional meat pie for lunch!). This mining town suffered a tragic loss of miners (just days after the Chilean mining disaster), all involved died ... read more

Sorry for the lack of blog updates!! I honestly tried but there was free internet in the hostel I was in, in Nelson, but slow internet and it couldn't deal with this bog standard website. I've only got a precious few minutes on this computer so I'm going to write down as much as I can. I'll type from my diary, that's easiest. On my final day in Wellington I got my upper ear pierced. That was about it for the day - I also read a book and bought bread and tomatoes. I live a crazy life. That evening a group of 4 Dutch/Scandinavian girls arrived. They did a group FULL BODY moisturising session (i.e. naked) which was extremely awkward for theo ther girls in the room. It was like one of those movies made ... read more

New Zealand is such a beautiful country! All all the scenery I have seen so far is simply amazing. We arrived into Christchurch's tiny airport late Friday night and headed to base backpackers at Cathedral square. We had to catch the Kiwi Experience bus at 8am the next morning so sightseeing didn't really happen but from what I saw it seemed like a pleasant city and I found out that it Hagley park in the centre is the world's third largest central park behind that of New York and Vancouver. After dominating my $9 all you can eat breakfast buffet (I took that as a serious challenge) we got on our first Kiwi Experience bus. Similar to the Oz Experience bus, the drivers act as tour guides as well so you get to know loads of ... read more

Ok this entry's going to be pretty short because Wesport was one of the most boring places i've ever been so we had to make our own entertainment - we went for a walk and it got dark and we nearly got chased by a load of bulls! And the only reason for us goin to Lake Mahinapua was to have a fancy dress party and drinking session - the theme of our party was imagination so we had to dress up as something that wasn't real! So the four of us went as the Four Mustgetbeers instead of the Three Musketeers! I thought it was a really clever idea but think it went straight over a lot of people's heads but hey. Here are some photos...... read more

So we left Westport Feb 7th and unfortunately it was raining so we didn't do the walk that was planned with a seal colony. We stopped a little later and did a shorter walk called the Truman Track instead and then stopped at a place called Punakaiki for lunch and saw some pancake rocks (so called because they look like they're stacked on top of one another). We stopped a little before Mahinapua to get supplies for the night for our costume party - the theme was anything starting with the letter "p" - it was a "p" party at the Poo Pub (apparently that's what they call it). Carole and I were punks. It was pretty fun - there were a lot of pirates though. Our host was an 84 year old man who throws ... read more