Steve and I had finished work a few days before Christmas and spent the holiday period with everyone at the hostel for an orphans Christmas. Christmas dinner consisted of a huge buffet with spit roasted sheep and pig, beef, ham on the bone and loads of lovely side dishes. We had a good time playing basket ball and enjoying a few beers in the sun.

New years eve was celebrated in the Woolshed with everyone and we all knocked back jaegar bombs when midnight came around.

With no more work and a lot of the south island to see we set off with our mate Al to have an adventure. We drove over Arthur's pass which is the mountain divide between the West and East coast. We were really lucky with the weather on the first day brilliant blue skies and not a cloud to be seen. We took a walk up to Devil's Punchbowl waterfall in the middle of the national park. There was what felt like millions of steps but it was worth the sweat and almost tears once at the top.

We decided that we didn't want to spend much time at hostels if we could avoid it and make the most of the free tent we'd picked up from Cokers. Our first night we found a free camp spot and pitched our tents, we were all too knackered to be bothered to cook so finished off the baguettes that we'd made and not had for lunch. It was very early to bed that night, not having any light or power meant we were tucked up by 7pm, very strange for us!

As we were in bed by 7pm the night before we were up at the crack of dawn along with the birds. Having packed up the tents we went to the visitor centre to see what walks we could do in the area. It was lucky that we were up at stupid o'clock because there was a severe weather warning for the national park and West coast, torrential rain and strong gale force winds were due but not till the afternoon. We had enough time to have to go for another uphill struggle which was 3hrs all up a steepmountain walking over loose stones. The mountain in winter is actually a ski slope and at the top was all the currently unused cabins and reception area and an overnight hut for anyone mad enough to bring all their food and sleeping gear to stay the night. The views were very moody from the top and we could see the weather changing so with that we were all in agreement to make the descent back to the car and get to Greymouth.

The drive only took us a few hours and we were there by 2pm. Greymouthis as boring and dull as the name suggests with not a great deal to do there and nothing special it's basically the first place you come to having come across Arthurs Pass. We hadn't any intention to stay but we were all quite tired after the walk and the drive so thought we'd stay the night. Still with the mentality of "we want to camp not stay in hostels" we had to go with half and half we did stay at a hostel but were allowed to pitch the tents on the small patch of grass outside for $10 a night, much better than $30pp to stay in a dorm room.

Come late afternoon / early evening there was still no sign of this major storm, so we all sat out on the patio and had some goon. We got chatting to a few people then more goon was needed -I think you can guess where the gist of this is going - well, yes anyway we all got drunk on the cheapest wine possible. During this time we were completely unaware that the predicted storm was already kicking up and the winds were lashing the tents. We came out to go to bed at 2am and our tent was practically caved in on one side but still pegged into the floor, with the senses quite numb we thought we'd be fine and clambered in to sleep for a few hours.During our initial sleep the heavens opened and the winds got worse, the top ofthe tent (which I can stand up in I'm 5'3") was hitting us in the face and the rain was coming down at all angles and we soon found out that the tent wasn't very waterproof.Steve was still asleep through all this in a goon induced coma, I was soaked through and started crying woke him up to tell him I couldn't stay in there any longer and was going to sleep in the lounge of the hostel, he wasn't too happy to have been woken up but joined my anyway.

The morning after, the tent was well caved in on one side and looking really sorry for itself and soaked through on the inside. We had our breakfast and during this time it finally gave up and was swept across the car park.The storm was still going and we had nowhere to sleep and it wasn't a good idea to drive to Westport till it had calmed so we had to give in and pay to stay in the hostel, it was nice to have a bed though!