Good morning, good mo-orn-ing, it's great to be up late, good morning, good morning to you! Come on you all know the words! You don't? Oh well you will, because our new bus driver for the south island plays that same damn song every single bloody twatting morning. I might have to kill him.
Anyway warm welcomes from Westport! After leaving wellington we had a whole new island ahead of us! New people, new driver, new um well no that's about it but still good times ahead! That is after you have survived the three hour ferry trip to nelson (our first stop of the south island). But to be fair the ferry did have 8 decks, including a food court, a bar and a cinema so really, not too shabby :p after we landed in picton we met all our new bus friends and after an exhausting, embarrasing, unnessesary and primary school worthy game that Kane (our driver) made us play involving going round asking stupid questions to people like we are all too socially retarded to make friends ourselves, on a moving bus by the way, we finally got to nelson. Charming little town, not much to do but it does lay claim to having the complete centre of new Zealand within the town Borders, infact there's a little plaque there to mark it and everything :p.
The hostel there was more of a country hotel really, except with dodgy bunkbeds put in the cheaper rooms, but it was nice and homely, and they did us a great roast dinner and pavlova in the evening after we had taken part in official local beer tasting (dad will be ever so impressed with my knowledge :p) so all in all it was a nice relaxing evening :)
The next day however was when the fun started :p we left for Westport early morning and sat and watched as the terrential rain continued to test the buses warerproofness as we passed over the new Zealand countryside, which by the way is purely beautiful. We arrived just outside of Westport late afternoon and had the oppertunity to either quadbike or go horse trekking for a few hours, well most people decided that since it was pissing it down they would give it a miss, however me, dave and ele all thought we would give horse trekking a go! Mine was called wraddler and was slightly firey for my liking but not as much as ele's! Although she had ridden before, whereas dave had never been on a horse so he was given the biggest slowest dumbest horse they had who was perfectly content to plod along at the back of the line :) the trek was good fun, we went over sand, hills, through ditches and mud tracks and even down into waist deep water at one point! As in it was up to my waist, whilst I was on the horse! The horses loved it though! We also got the chance to trot and canter a bit, except that wraddlers idea of cantering is actually galloping and my god that horse is fast! At one point I he took me so much by surprise and then I had to stop so fast that he almost threw me off! Something most of you know I am deathly scared of and I insist on making a no harming each other deal with horses before infer on them... He apparently wasn't listening! Still, all in good fun right?! :S
Na it was good fun, the only slightly alarming point was when I realised that whilst trying to stay on I had managed to drop my camera somewhere without noticing! And since it was now dark, biblically raining and we were almost back at the lodge, I held out little hope of retrieving it :( but low and behold one of the guides went back out on a quadbikecwith a torch and searched the entire trail for it, and he found it!! Thank god it was waterproof though!! Tres good times indeed :)
We got back to the hostel a little later on and found to our surprise that not only had mark (another member of our little family, maybe like the eccentric uncle) had managed to get us all into the same room (there was 8 of us) but had also struck quite a note with the woman at reception and got us into the best room! Which was seperate to the others and had all the beds but then also it's own bathroom, kitchen and living room area with a fire and tv!! It was like out own little house! With the exception of the French girl and brazillian dude also in there, but still, pretty damn cool!
The evening was taken up with a three legged pub crawl round Westport town, something kane devised to allow us to 'get to know each other better', so as he called out names we were strapped to each other for the forseeable future and headed out into the night. I was tied to a lad called nick who turned out to be a pretty nice guy, although his pool skills leave something to be desired! Then again on his defence we were tied together whilst we tried to play each other! Doubles was slightly easier lol although probably still not deemed the safest of activities! The funny thing was, even though most people didn't know the person they were tied to, all the 'couples' still drank the same drinks as each other! Weird eh! It was definitly a good night though, even if kane's choice of pubs included mullet filled local joints with no atmosphere whatsoever - we MADE atmosphere :p
Getting back to the hostel prooved to be slightly problamatic as when me and jade, having seperated from our prospective other halves, departed around half one we found the entrance to the hostel completly flooded! I'm talking atleast ankle/shin deep water! So getting through that was so absolutly traumatic that the only possible course of action when we got in was of course a cup of tea whilst we sat round the fire and watch trashy late night tv - this evenings showing? Seduction - a lustful and deceit filled soap opera, brilliant!
Xxx