16th Feb - Another early departure and we headed South towards Lake Mahinpua. We stopped off on the way to see the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and blowholes. We had a photo taken of all of us lying across a bridge. Stuart decided to go over snap happy and take a million photos on my camera. Bloody Essex! After taking some scenic photos, we jumped back on the bus and continued to L.M. We had a new bus driver since Wellington, called Vaughan, who informed us of the nig...

15th Feb - We had a late departure today for once so we had breakfast and headed to the beach. The group was splitting up today :( as we were leaving Rosie and Charlotte behind! We said our goodbyes and hopped on the bus to go to Westport. So now there was just 6 of us - me, Hannah, Kylie, Si, Stu and Adam. We drove along the amazing Buller Gorge that is NZ's river with the greatest flood discharge. Just before we arrived in Westport, we stopped off at an adven...

14th Feb - We woke up at the crack of dawn to get the ferry to the South island. We had got comfy having stayed 3 nights in one place for once (!!) but it was now that dreaded time to pack our bags and return them to where they belong - our back!! We lugged our bags down to the bus stop where the kiwi bus would pick us up from. Luckily, we had a VERY rare spare 10 minutes before the bus arrived, so we ran to the supermarket to grab a croissant and banana - standa...

12th Feb - we all woke up extremely hungover but dragged ourselves out to go to the museum. On the way we stopped off at maccys. Stuart ordered a chocolate milkshake. Upon receipt, he noticed it was green at the bottom so he asked the server why. She said 'oh that's just lime milkshake. Is that alright?'. Stuart was like ''no!! Does it look alright to you?". Funniest thing ever! After laughing non-stop for about half an hour, we went to see the museum. Omg museu...

10th Feb - we carried on our journey through the North island through to River Valley. We headed to Tongariro National Park, which is New Zealand's oldest national park, one of New Zealand's three world heritage areas and fourth one created in the world! We went for a walk and came across a cone shaped mountain which was used in Lord of the Rings as Mount Doom. Stuart played songs from the movie just to put us in the scene. We hopped back on the bus and an hour...