One early morning wake up, Two belly's full of eggs, beans and toast, Two kiwi buses, One Colgate toothpaste model for a driver, One massive Maori as the other, One drive through the mountains, one snowball fight and Nine hours later we arrive in Westport.

The majority of our day was taken up by the journey to get to the west coast and started by meeting Smiley, who had a huge mouthful of teeth and a lifetime supply of Colgate to his name from being in a Colgate advert when he was a kid! He was the driver of our first bus who drove us halfway to Westport where we were to meet up with the main bus coming down from the north.

On the way, we were driving through perfectly clear skies with the sun shining bright. One sleep later and we were awoken to a snow swept landscape as a massive snowstorm had just hit that morning. We stopped off and had a bit of a snowball fight before it dawned on us that we really didn't pack for the cold. Vest tops have soon become thermal layers and the flip flops have been tucked away.

Our new driver a huge Maori machine called Toddy drove us the remainder of the way and after a few hours driving we arrived in Westport. Not a lot goes down in Westport and it mainly provides a night to stay after the crossing from Christchurch. We had a nice meal by a log fire and had a few games of cards with some people we met on the bus before hitting the sack.

The next morning we set off for Lake Mahinapua stopping on the way at some scenic beauties. First on the cards was a seal colony at Tauranga Bay, to get there we went for a little walk through some hills and on the way back we had an amazing chocolate cookie milkshake. Next up was the pancake rocks, which are a series of stacked limestone rocks that have been eroded away and now resemble piles of pancakes, simple!

We knew that there was a themed night planned for Lake Mahinapua dubbed the poo party and it turned out ours would be a "P" themed party. To be honest we wasn't exactly overly enthusiastic about it all but we entered into the spirit of things and when we stopped off in a small town were we went hunting for the charity shops. We flirted with the prospects of puppets, pirates, poddington peas and the pope, however we finally settled on good old "pensioners", Lady ones! So one hour later and a little imagination, we walked out fully kitted out in potentially dead peoples clothes!

When we got to our accommodation, we were greeted with an 87 year old publican who was an absolute legend. He entertained us with priceless quotes and laughs such as "Welcome to New Zealand, the country where men are men and sheep are nervous." We made friends with two lads called Jon and Paul back in Christchurch and all four of us were having a great laugh up to now. So we had a good feeling it would be an entertaining night. We were definitely not disappointed and as terrible as we all looked, it was a great laugh.

Adam & Adam