Well after a late night watching the rugby we were up early to get to the trans scenic train station. Luckily it was quite close to gary's work, so he dropped us there. The train took 4 and a half hours and there were fifteen tunnels!!

When we got to the motel it had a huge playground but it was raining so mum said not to get wet. So we went straight outside and played for hours in the rain and got soaked! It was only then that I realized that I only had one pair of trousers!!! Whoops. The flying fox was heaps cool but dad went on it and it nearly broke.

The next morning we drove to Hokitika. It was a little sleepy country town but if you kept driving you end up in Hokitika gorge. After a little walk over a swing bridge we saw the gorge. The water is a beautiful blue and is colored by glacial flowers. We also saw some cows so mum was happy. We sat in the car at the beach in he rain to eat our homemade sandwiches. Fun. After lunch we went Shantytown. It's an old gold mining town. We went on an old steam train and got to pan for gold. Both Eli and I found a little bit. It was a very interesting afternoon with lots of info about the mines and the people who worked and lived there. Then we went home to play in the rain!

Yesterday we drove to the pancake rocks. They were pretty cool. We saw a weku bird. They are kind of like a new Zealand version of a chicken. Scientists don't know how the rocks were formed only what they are made of. The sea was way too big and messy for dad to have a surf so we went back to the motel and mum got the washing done and watched it dry while drinking some wine while dad had a sleep! We found some other kids to play with.

This morning we had steak and cheese pies for breakfast! Mmmmm. There was no surf again so we had nothing else to do until the train came at 1.30 so we just wandered around town. Boring. Now we are on the train again on our way back to Gary. Bet he has missed us! On one of our stops we saw a huge mountain parrot. It was just jumping around the platform! The train man said they like apples but we only have bananas.