I know it's been a while since I last did this, it's amazing how busy we've been here in NZ, there is so much to see and do, I'd definitely recommend it to those adventure junkies, or anyone who can get three weeks off work at a time, it's well worth a look. We got the ferry onto the south island and stayed in a place called Nelson, which is the sunshine capital of NZ as it gets more hours than anywhere else. Acoording to the magic bus driver it gets more hours in a year than the UK gets in a decade!! That didn't go down to well with the english on the bus!! Nelson is the home of the Able Tasman national park, the most visited and one of the most beautiful national parks in NZ. We were very adventurous and decided to explore it by kayak. in a planned trip obviously!! There were 8 of us and a guide and we kayaked about 14k up the coast of the national park to a place called bark bay, it was a kayaking trip that included seeing seals in their natural habitat, disappointingly there were only three there!! Not the great number we were expecting. Although it was fun to get out onto the sea in the kayaks it wasn't a great way to see the national park, it could have been a coastline anywhere although we did get access to some pretty cool secluded beaches. From nelson we headed to a place called greymouth, which was definitely grey by name and nature, everyone who travels on the magic bus only stays one night in this place and that's beacuse they have to!! The highlight of the whole place was the local brewery tour, it was a traditional ale brewery, we got to see how they do it and then have a taste of about 6 ales, Rich obviously got to try 11 of them as beer is really not my drink although there was one of them I quite liked. After that we went to a local bar to have an all you can eat sausage bbq, Rich's idea of heaven, the record was 26 but Rich made a poor attempt at it, only managing 4!! Too much beer I think. We did stay in a really nice hostel there though, actually had fresh towels and reading lights, a big thing believe me!! From Greymouth, the next stop is Franz Josef, it's a really mountainous area, and where the glaciers are, looking forward to seeing the snow and ice.