Day 16: 16/1/13
We didn't leave until 9 this morning so that was okay! We went to lake Matheson first. There was an hour long walk around the lake which woke us all up. The lake is supposed to mirror Mt Cook and Mt Tasman but it was cloudy today and you couldn't really see the mountains, not to mind a reflection in the water!
We stopped at a viewing point looking over the sea. A few minutes later we stopped at Thunder Creek falls which was a nice waterfall. If you stared at the waterfall and then at the bush or your hand, it looked like they were growing! They have nicknamed the falls LSD falls!
The National park we were driving through today was full of mountains covered in bush, rivers and waterfalls which was very pretty. We had a guessing competition to see how many bridges we were going to cross to get to a certain place on today's schedule. I guessed 19 and we had that many crossed within two hours!! The answer was 25!
We stopped at another place called the Blue pools. There was just a river really but the water was really blue and there were little waterfalls along it and rocks and things. There were really bouncy suspension bridges over it too. We were standing there taking photos when two girls jumped in. They had wet suits in so they seemed really prepared. A random guy decided he was jumping in then and stripped down to his underwear and somersaulted off the bridge! I went back to the bus then with some others and it turned out that three lads and two girls from the bus jumped in too- madness!!
We drove by lake Wanaka then for a while which was really pretty. It was way nicer than the other lakes we've been to and it seemed for ages that we weren't going to stop at all but we did, thankfully!! There was something mentioned about freshwater dolphins aswell but we didn't see anything!!
There was one of the guys that has been with us from the start that couldn't get on the bus today as he was only on a waiting list. When we were just pulling off from lake Wanaka we spotted him in a car as he was hitch hiking to Wanaka to meet the group again tonight. It was very funny when he passed us out!
We went to another lake then, lake Hawea. It was gorgeous aswell. These two lakes that we've seen in the space of half an hour have probably been the best views we've seen since we got here! Unfortunately I look terrible in the photos as my eyes are really tired and my hair is blowing in the wind!
When we got to the hostel it was almost six in the evening so we had to hurry ourselves up! The wifi was fairly good here so was finally able to upload the blogs! The only time we really have time to contact people or write blogs or emails, etc is when we are on the bus were there is no wifi obviously! After that its a mad rush for wifi!
The six girls in our room and one guy decided to do spaghetti bolognese together, so we went to the supermarket and got stuff. The kitchen was chaotic! There must have been about thirty people all trying to cook their own dinner- it was a vicious war for saucepans and plates!
Then we had to get ready to go out again! On all the other tours I've been on I brought going-out clothes and never had much of a chance to wear them! So I brought two outfits this time that aren't even that dressy and here were going out every night! Oh well! Most people are in the same boat! Tonight's bar was running bus wars- our Stray bus against the Kiwi experience bus, so we had to go to win- we're quite a competitive lot!!
We were late going down we thought but there was hardly anyone there! There were only a few Kiwis! They got green face paint as their buses are green and we got orange face paint as our bus is orange. First there was musical chairs- Stray won that easily! There was a dancing competition and one guy from each bus was trying to pole dance and pretend to strip- there's a Northern Irish guy on our bus that joined the other day with his wife and he was very talented on the pole! So he was a clear winner! The Kiwis seemed to vanish then and we took over the place! The Stray bus is supposed to be the older sensible bus that don't go mad drinking all the time, but somehow even though most of us are late twenties we have turned into a party bus!
Karaoke is our strong point. There's a few good singers that sang on their own. The rest of us all sang Man on the Mirror together- lots of screaming rather than singing!!
We went to another pub afterwards aswell. People were in a pretty silly mood the way there and back- people running around the road giving piggy backs, falling over, jumping barriers, going up on a parked boat singing 'boats and hos'........ It was just pure madness, but hilarious!! I spent most of the night roaring laughing!!