South Island's West Coast

Christmas day! We had a bit of a lie in and left to go back to Tracey's house at 11ish. That was the latest I've ever slept on Christmas day but I guess there wasn't as much excitement for me. We had a really nice lunch of roast chicken and ham with vegetables, some the same but some different to back in England. It was a really nice lunch (though nothing can compare to mums!) and I think the first roast dinner I'd had in 10 months. After stuffing our faces as has to be done every Xmas lunch, me Trace and her bro crashed out on the sofas for the afternoon whilst watching Futurama. By the time we woke up it was pretty much time for dinner! Cold meats with potato salad, rice salad and cheese etc, again much the same to home. After dinner we opened presents, I had a card that Mat brought over to Oz and also got a bar of chocolate, a box of chocolates and a kiwi fruit! Then went to the beach for a walk, despite the pretty crappy summer weather. But it's still the first Christmas day I've been to the beach! The evening was lazed away watching TV before bedtime, so it was pretty much a day of eating and sleeping but aren't most Christmas's?!

I had a few more days to spend in Pram for which I'll just list the stuff I did...

- Went to Wellington Zoo
- Went to Te Papa
- Went to the beach
- Went to a friends house drinking and having a BBQ one evening
- Went to a little beachside cafe a few times where a few of Tracey's friends worked
- Played Tony Hawk on PS2!
- Watched a couple of movies

And that's about it. Then on 30th I moved into the city for New Year, all of the family were going away for it. On New Years Eve day I took the famous old cable car up the hill and didnt' do much for the rest of the day. In the evening I met some people in the hostel about 10 minutes before we decided to go out! We stayed in an Irish bar till about 11.30 and decided to go somewhere else to see the New Year in so went to Shooters (I've been in 4 Shooter's bars now and still don't know if it's a chain, does anyone?) Saw the New Year in with tequila shots and powered our way through jaegerbombs for the rest of the night. When everywhere had closed at 5am I knew of one place still open. A club called sandwiches, I had nearly bought a ticket for it in advance for $40 but decided not to. When we got to the door they still wanted $20 for entrance but after a bit of smooth talking on my part I got us all in free! We stayed there till 7.30am and then stayed up the rest of the day next day too, finally collapsing into bed at 10pm!

The day after that I just rested and in the evening went to see Borat which was absolutely hilarious and made me cry! Then it was time to get back into travelling mode for about a week...

3: Wellington - Nelson. Took the ferry at 8.30am and didn't feel too well on the journey, tried to sleep most of the way. Upon arriving in the south island we stopped off at a winery for some wine sampling and I managed to get double for chatting with the guy there! Had a really nice chicken pie there too, my second best in NZ (NZ'ers are big on their pie's if I hadn't already said). We also stopped at a bridge and a few of us had a swim in the river beneath where there were also a few rock jumps. That night we stayed at the Prince Albert hotel which was very posh but had a backpacker section, still posh but at backpacker prices so that was cool. Upon arrival we had a beer tasting session and a jazz band played in the bar that evening, so we stayed for a few beers and had quite an early night, just starting to get to know each other on our new bus.

4: Nelson - Westport. We stopped at the Nelson Lakes National Park for a picnic lunch by the lake which was so beautiful (see picture of me swimming surrounded by mountains.) The only thing we had to avoid was the massive eels sharing the water with us! At the hostel I cooked a nice meal with my new buddies Shannon and Caitlin aka Team America which was followed by a game of footie in the park. We all jumped back on the big green bus in the evening and drove down to the beach where we built a big bonfire. Once it was going a few of us ran down to the sea for a quick dip, then it was back around the fire to warm up. I was the only prepared person, having bought marshmallows earlier in the day, though everyone else had remembered their beer luckily. So we all sat around the fire for several hours and really got to know each other, it was a good bonding session!

5: Westport - Poo pub. We had quite a long walk on our journey this morning which led us along the sea side cliff tops, eventually reaching a seal colony. The seals were really smelly and quite noisy but it was cool to see, they've sure got some grip on those rocks! Not long after we stopped for another walk, down onto a beach with little waterfalls flowing down to it and cool rock jumps and then yet another walk to the 'pancake rocks' which showed a resemblance but didn't look tempting enough to take a bite. Another great bonding session took place this evening in the form of a fancy dress party at the infamous 'Poo pub' - not sure why it's named so but is actually quite famous having apparently appeared in a few films and adverts. We had a brilliant meal beforehand cooked by the landlord (the oldest in NZ - 81) and Cheese our bus driver, steak, venison, pasta, bread, vegetables, etc. Then everyone in my room - Team America, 2 English girls Jess and Briony and Brazilian Bernado - helped each other get ready and I somehow got persuaded into dressing as... a girl. Anyway, everyone loved it and we all had a hilarious night of dancing, singing and drinking games so it's all good.

6: Poo pub - Franz Josef. No walks or stopovers worth mentioning today, just straight through to Franz where we booked our ice climbs for the next day. After that we got a group together of about 15 of us and went paintballing! We played 4 games of capture the flag and our team won all 4 - we kicked ass! There were some good shots and bruises resulting and we all went home completely drenched from the rain and smelling from rolling around in the mud! Luckily the hostel had a 30 person spa so we all jumped straight in :-(

7: Franz Josef. The day of our ice climbs. An early start at 7.45am and my group were first onto the glacier that morning. This meant we had to cut our way through parts of the glacier as a result of the nights glacial activity and we had to watch where we were going more than the other groups. Exciting! The climb to the top involved walking along some narrow ledges and up some steep stairs, where there were normally ropes to hold onto. There was also a bridge, well actually a wooden plank, over a big crevass which freaked some people out. Once we got to the top the guides set up ropes in 4 different places and we were briefed on how to ice climb. Then we got straight into it! It was really cool, something I'd never pictured myself doing... at times it wasn't possible to dig your boots into the ice wall (they had two spikes on the front as well as on the bottom) so you were simply relying on hanging your body weight from the ice picks, and on top of that hoping they wouldn't slip out! You had to really dig the picks in for them to stay and it got really tiring by the last climb. After we made our way through some caves and on the way back down enjoyed the amazing views. We were also very lucky to have a nice sunny day for it. Once we got back to the hostel we had some beers and played a game throwing beer caps into a glass for several hours, it's suprising how fun it can be! Then we all went to the bar in the evening.

8: Franz - Wanaka. Our first stop off today was at Lake Matheson for breakfast with a view of snowcapped Mount Cook - the highest mountain in NZ. Later in the day we made an unplanned stop in a river bed! I was asleep as the situation was progressing, until we suddenly hit a massive rock and became grounded on it! I was suprised to say the least when I looked out the window to see a river rushing past next to us, god knows why we were even there! So we wedged some rocks out and gave the bus a big push and we were on our way again. That night in the hotel turned hostel we had a big group game of flip cup, with Team America helping our team to victory!

Then we moved down to Queenstown which I will write as a separate post, having spent over a week there and taken part in many an extreme activity! Until then enjoy the photos above...