Started our trip down the west coast of new zealand today, from Westport to Lake Mahinapua. Travelling south down the State Highway 6 is one hell of a drive, so many good views out the window. The west coast is described as a place where "nothing is too outrageous to have occured and the imrobable is impossible. Our first stop of the day was Tauranga Bay where we walked along the coast of the Tasman Sea and looked down of one of New Zealands largest seal colonies! Carried on to The Pancake Rocks where we got some lunch and I jogged the walking trail as we were short on time. Another gorgeous place with great views of the sea, and names Pancake Rocks as the layers of limestone do look like stacks of pancakes! We then jumped back on the bus and stopped off at Greymouth to get our costumes for the traditional party at the Lake Mahinapua hotel (The Poo Pub), probably the most famous and well know part of the Kiwi Experience. The Poo Pub is basically all there is in Mahinipua and its a little pub by the lake with dorms, ran by the legandary Les who is known by all in the South Island! Hes 86 years old and every single night of the year has a whole Kiwi bus full of backpackers arrive, cooks a massive , delicious BBQ for everyone, then holds a huge themed party in the pub! Its been going on for years and years and years and you can tell the place holds a LOT of memories! Every night a group photo of the Kiwi group is taken and the walls of the pub are covered head to toe in polaroids, then as room ran out there are loads of photo albums. Couldn't even guess how many photos he has but it was brilliant looking around. Tried to find Dave's photo but didn't know the exact date he went!! Didn't manage to find him but got to see all the people from our old bus who are ahead of us :-) We'd had a bit of controversy with our theme. The drivers had picked the theme of "bad taste" which basically means dress as something really inapropriate, for example the twin towers, Sadam Hussain... something like that that would be controversial... I'm sure you can all think of worse! But a guy came to the front of the bus and did a big speech about how we should think about what we went as as we may offend people, which was the point but it was all a bit serious and depressing. In the end, and probably for the best, they changed the theme to ABC, Anything But Clothes, which was brilliant and a lot better. I found some fairy wings, a wand and crown and as I'd never been a fairy before decided to go all out on the girly front and made myself a dress out of a kids bed sheet, covered myself in pink gems and loved it haha! Mike brought a massive cuddly lion and I made him a nappy and he went as a baby (so did two other guys). There were some really brilliant outfits, really imaginative and well made! Best outfits had to be two guys that went as Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, soooo well done! Had massive flowerpots, held up with hosepipes, the lot! The rightfully won first prize! Had lots of well made dresses out of magazines, bin bags, McDonalds bags (!) etc. Was such a good night, there was a juke box so we all got to pick the music, I picked at the right time because by the time the songs I picked came on everyone was dancing! Les was a legand, when he met us on the bus he did a speech and it was hillarious, he's like a proper grumpy old man but really funny and took an instant liking to Mike which was soo funny. Got a photo with him at the bar so will have to upload that soon! Really really good night, double the amount of people as he gets most nights so the group photo was huge but awesome :)