After leaving Greymouth and some witty banter from Kane our Kiwi driver we headed off to the Bushman Centre. This was basically and man's man's place where animal skin lined the chairs and hunting was the sport of the day! After an intro from the guy who ran the place it was off into the 'Museum' section. After a short video of men jumping out of helicopters onto deers backs and wrestling them down to the floor we all sufficiently felt like little boys, it was ti...

Leaving Westport it was time for our last Ocean drive along the west coast. Mincing it down with rain we stopped off to see some seals before cranking on with one of our longest journeys in NZ. A few sight seeing opportunities later and we arrived in Greymouth and caught our first glimpses of the snow capped mountains. The agenda was fancy dress costumes. The girls had to wear bin bags and the guys had to go as girls. We had two hours to get the outfits so we wer...

Having left Nelson after a brief stop it was time for another one nighter in Westport. It was a bit of a mission on the bus (although not compared to Oz standards) and our first stop was a lake. Hearing that there might be a swimming opportunity the lads had packed their speedos and we were off. A brisk 45 minute walk around our first (of what would be many) picturesque lakes we arrived to the end and a jetty. Having assessed the water temperature and all agreei...

April 30th and it was off to Nelson. Feeling a little delicate we jumped on the bus to hear that the first place would be wine tasting. A few delights with no one getting out their wallets and it was onwards. Again another scenic day of driving and once we got to Nelson the place looked really nice. Great place to chill for a few days and stuff to do. However we decided we needed to get the West Coast show on the road so went for just one evening. A relaxed day o...

Tuesday and it was time to get on that big green Kiwi bus. We'd heard such good things we couldn't wait to get started! Our first port of call was Kaikoura. The journey itself was amazing. We got our first glimpses at just how beautiful the NZ landscape was going to be! Rolling hills, green grass and plenty of wildlife - if not a lot of sheep! We arrived in Kaikoura and once again it was roasting. Whale watching was to be our first group outing. After a thrilling...