Having slept in a camping spot once again, we woke up to find some strange bird milling around outside the Jucy van and even once managed to hop in to the passenger footwell when the door was open. Obviously I was less than pleased about this. We made some breakfast and headed slightly back the way we came to check out Pancake Rocks and blowholes (which had been pointed out to us by the policeman from Oamaru - although I thought at the time due to the Kiwi accent that he had been saying Pink Cake Rocks) We also stopped to take some photos from a couple of look out points. As it was a Friday we were hoping for a night out and so headed for the next big town of Westport, via the Seal Colony just outside the town. When we got in to Westport the heavens opened so we made a dash for the nearest tourist info centre whereupon the helpful lady inside's only suggestion for our time in Westport was to watch the rain from a coffee shop window. With that thrilling prospect, we decided to scrap Westport and drive on to Nelson instead via the Buller Gorge. And stopped for the swing bridge and flying fox, which seemed pretty tame after a bungy jump, but was still good fun!
Nelson was quite a strange place. The venues all seemed very trashy and we met a lot of random people. It is a shame to admit that our favourite part of the night was probably the food we got and our taxi ride home. In the morning, luckily without a hangover, we drove to Abel Tasman national park for a look around and the scenery was amazing. Although you almost get a bit blasé about it all in New Zealand. We stopped off at an obscure little tavern for lunch, which half reminded us of Gurley and then headed for the wine region of Marlborough, but not before taking part in a World Record Attempt of the most people doing the Haka in preparation for Nelson's hosting of the 2012 Rugby. Unfortunately didn't break the record, but at least we were there to try. Although we still cannot to this day work out how they failed a record attempt, as surely if they just altered one tiny detail of the event they would have created something no one else has tried?!