Woke up early this morning intending to go for a run before I went to catch my bus...made it as far as the door and saw the torrential rain and was like, maybe not! Back to bed! Ended up taking my time too much though and managed to miss the bus to my bus pickup (mainly because what reception had said was a 10 minute walk turned out to be closer to 25!). After standing in the rain for about 20 minutes I eventually got another one...good thing I aimed to be early! Managed to make it to the pick up point for my Stray bus with around 10 minutes to spare!

Met two girls, Sarah (German) and Julia (American) waiting at the stop who were really nice. Was pretty weird when the bus pulled up because loads of people were getting off! It was half empty when we got on, but that was cool because there was loads of space :) everyone seemed friendly enough but I was only chatting a wee bit. We stopped for a break and got pies which were really nice, and I got talking to two guys called Michael (American) and Tommy (Irish), who were really nice! Back on the bus I sat by myself for a bit and then Tommy came to sit with me for a bit and help me out with figuring out my plan for the next bit of the journey - I could either stay on that bus and head north or change buses the next day and do the south island first! I was very confused haha, but eventually decided to follow my instincts and just do the south island first! We also got to put our name down for activities, so I signed up for swimming with dolphins...trying to ignore the fact that I'm pretty terrified of them! Haha.

We arrived in Kaikoura around half 12 I think, and after stopping to pay for the dolphin swimming (which I was starting to get a bit worried about!) and dropping some people off to do whale watching (where the bus battery died and needed a push start), we got to the hostel that the bus driver had booked for us. It really is a crazily easy system on these buses!

Was starting to chat to a few more people which was nice, everyone was really friendly! Was in a room with Tommy, Michael and a Canadian girl called Diane. Was a nice enough hostel! After a bit of a rest me and the boys went for a wander around the town. We ended up walking for a bit an deciding to walk round to where a seal colony lived a bit round the coast! We didn't think it was that far but ended up taking about and hour and a half lol. It was a really nice day though an the coastline was absolutely stunning! There was even snow starting on the mountains! Very exciting haha. We walked past a pier which people were jumping off and briefly considered it, then decided it was probably better to do on the way back as we would be all wet haha. We also passed a sheep farm with sheep-shearing shows haha...went to investigate but they were $10 per person which seemed a bit silly! Eventually we actually made it to the seals, which were pretty awesome! They were just lying everywhere! A few were just sitting in the rocks posing for photos haha, it was pretty cool! There was a brief incident with Tommy trying to get a photo with a seal and ending up dropping his phone on top of it - some great entertainment watching him get it back haha! When we were going to walk home Michael's foot was pretty sore and we managed to hitch a lift back into town which was really handy! Kiwis are so friendly!

We headed straight to the bar to get our free soup for staying in the hostel! It was actually really nice, and I bought a baguette from across the road which was awesome! After that I went in search of wifi - there was a wine tasting bar thing across the road with free wifi which was pretty cool - just bought a taster of wine and could sit there all day! The guy working there was Scottish and really nice, got me a bottle of water and all for while I was sitting. Sat for a bit trying to sort my life out...wasn't sure where to go next (north/south) and whether to go to Fiji or not. Looked into it for quite a while and was still really unsure.

At about half 6 headed back to the bar at the hostel because they were doing a thing where you flip a coin, and if you call it right your drink is free! Couldn't see anyone from the bus there, and was about to head up to the room when the barman brought out plates of pizza and chips and wedges! I was like hmmm and asked some guys at the bar whether it was free or what the craic was - turned out they worked there and it was free! Awesome! So I munched a bit and pulled up a chair and chatted to those guys for a bit, one was a local and one was English. They were nice, and when the barman beat me on the coin toss one of them bought my drink which was sweet! After a bit they went out for a smoke and I found some people from the bus which was cool. There was a very loud English girl who was nice enough but kept making a few random snide comments which was a bit odd lol, found it quite entertaining though. Also a nice slightly quiet English girl and a guy Tony who was doing the dolphins with me the next day. I managed to beat the barman and get my second drink for free! After a while a good few others had joined us (nice Scottish girl, the ones from my room, two Danish guys) and around 8 we went across the road to do a pub quiz! We ended up having too many people so split into 3 teams - girls vs boys and then the reject team of me, the Danish guys, and the guys from my room haha. It was really good craic though, and we didn't win but Nikolai did manage to get us all a free drink for doing an impression of Mr Tickle during the Mr Men round!

When the quiz was finished we went back to the bar at the hostel as we had a free drink there for staying there (wasn't doing too bad for drinks tonight!) and even managed a bit of a dance before heading upstairs for a bit to chill in someone's room. Had a really good night, but went to bed pretty late for someone who had to leave at 5.30am to swim with dolphins!