Hey everyone

Today we went to Lake Mahinapua.

We left rainy Westport and headed down the West coast. Our first stop was Cape Foulwind, home of Tauranga bay, the country's closest point to Australia and home to the country's largest seal colony. We set off along the coastal path in search of the seals. The walk took about an hour and we had some great views of the rugged West coast bays and beaches. We viewed the seal colony from the top of the cliff, which meant we were right above the seals on the rocks below. We stood and watched the seal pups playing in the rock pools and searching for their mothers while the older seals sunbathed on the rocks. One seal pup was trying out its little voice and we listened to it groan and shout as it played with the other pups. They were so sweet but we had to leave them and continue the walk to the car park where our bus was waiting to take us to the next stop.

At the next stop we took a 15 minute walk along the Truman track, (nothing to do with the film) which took us through a wood where the trees were covered in moss and it all looked so green and so alive. The forest cleared and we arrived at the coast, where the path continued to a beach. The huge waves from the Tasman sea were smashing into the rocks surrounding the bay and causing lots of spray. The rocks on the bay had eroded from the bottom, so the rocks started to almost look like waves.

It seemed like today was turning out to be a very active day so we were glad the weather had cleared up. The next stop was another walk in Punakaiki, home to the Pancake Rocks and blowholes. We took a walk along the coastal path viewing the odd pancake rocks. They are a series of stratified limestone stacks which, over many thousands of years, have been eroded to resemble giant piles of neatly stacked pancakes - very odd but an interesting sight. Dotted about within the pancake rocks are the blowholes, which are caused by the high tide and extreme weather. Water is forced underneath the rocks and the immense pressure causes the water to be forced through the blowholes, created by years of erosion, exploding in the air with spectacular spray and noise. We spent a while looking at the rocks and watching the blowholes and an impressive surge pool where the waves were violently crashing, creating huge seaspray.

We left Punakaiki and headed on to our next stop for the day, which was the Salvation army, an odd stop but there is method to our madness. This evening we would be stopping in Lake Mahinapua hotel, which was famous in Kiwi Experience for its wild parties. The party we would be having was fancy dress and the theme was 'geeks and nerds', and where better to find an outfit than the Salvation Army. After 30 minutes of hilarious searching through the odd clothes in the shop we bought our outfits, and then on the way into Greymouth we stopped again to get supplies for the next few days.

The trip would be taking us into the less inhabited areas of New Zealand so we went to the supermarket and stacked up on food for the next few days. Alex hadn't been feeling very well lately, he had caught a cold and feeling a big down so we stocked up on drugs and treatment while we were near a pharmacy.

We then headed to our final stop for the day, Lake Mahanipua hotel, a hotel in the middle of no where. 'Hotel' is a very misleading name, as it was really a pub with dorms in portacabins behind. We got to our room and as the carpets had just been cleaned and still not properly dry the smell of damp was awful.

But we went to the pub with the rest of the group waiting for our huge steak dinner we had paid for. Legendery Les was our host for the evening, New Zealand's oldest publican at 83. He was hysterical, babbling away and made insulting remarks but he still was very quick as we discovered when we had a little chat to him about his pub, the business and the recession. When dinner time came we went to the dining hall and it must be the quickest we have ever seen 50 people served dinner. We had a steak and cheesy jacket potato with salad, coleslaw, corn on the cob, pasta, and their famous venison stew. Yum yum and all for £4.

We headed back to our room to prepare our costume for the evening. Christina opted for a shirt, bright red jumper and long bright yellow skirt, with socks and flip flops. She put her hair up in wonky pigtails and added little freckles. Alex's outfit was t-shirt buttoned up to the top, with tie and a sleeveless wooly cardigan, trousers tucked into his white socks and flip flops. Christina pinned his hair back so he had a nice combover and little freckles too. She found the sight of him hilarious.

We headed over to the pub and everyone looked as silly as we did. It was hard to recognise people in their outfits, but we had a good night chatting to the other Kiwi Experience passengers by the log fire, and boogeed for a while as the juxebox played some tunes. It was a good night and everyone had lots of fun. As it got late and the pub closed we headed off to bed, to our smelly cold room but had no problem falling straight to sleep. Xxx