Te Waka-a-Maui

I lost my hat on the ferry :( it was particularly blusterous on the deck and my hat was not securely fastened enough...

However, once I was off the ferry and onto the canoe (sorry, terrible joke - if it can even be called a joke) things picked up again, I met up with some of the old (but still beautiful) faces and found a couple of new ones too.
Once we had arrived in Nelson and settled into our cottage at Fern Lodge, a couple of my friends and I walked to the Centre of New Zealand. It was very central. We were treated to a real roast dinner complete with Yorkshire Puddings that evening. Nom. The next morning we set off to Westport, a town on the west coast known by the KiwiExperience bus drivers for being the town with the ungliest inhabitants in all of New Zealand. We had thought this was rather unfair until we got there. Suffice to say that it's quite difficult to get to the West Coast which may have diminished the gene pool slightly...
On the way we paused for lunch at Lake Rotoiti where, as I sat innocently making a sandwich, a savage duck crept up on me and literally stole it from me - right out of my hands! It was then mobbed by every other duck on the lake - it just goes to show that everyone gets there comeuppance.
It was here in Westport that I had my first New Zealand night out! Admittedly there was only about one pub so it wasn't a huge one, but it was good fun and it was an initial forming of South Island friendships.
From Westport we travelled down the coast towards our next destination; Lake Mahinipua where we would be spending the night at The Mahinipua Hotel, also known as the Poo Pub. Along the way we stopped for a couple of walks, one of which led us to one of New Zealand's largest seal colonies at Cape Foulwind. This is also New Zealand's closest point to Australia. The second walk led us through a geographical wonder; the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks, which are, to put it simply, rocks which look like stacks of pancakes.
Having arrived at the Poo Pub we wandered down to a beautiful if a little breezy beach to relax for a while before heading back for the group barbeque. This was another case of me eating more than my own weight - people sat at our table watched in disbelief as I polished off an individual quiche, mounds of pasta and salad, roast potatoes, some venison stew and half a steak. I'd like to say it was the fresh air what done it but really I'm like that all the time! Once we'd finished eating we were sent off to prepare for a fancy dress party in the theme of "What I want to be when I grow up". As I didn't have my little mermaid costume with me, I fell back on my insurance fancy dress outfit - the cowgirl. Although there were some particularly odd costumes - mostly everyone looked fantastic with the prize going to 5 of the boys dressed as Tiger Woods and his lady friends. Funnily enough it seemed like lots of the guyswant to be female when they grow up - what is it with boys and cross-dressing?!

Our first stop the next morning (luckily for the majority of the coach who were in the grip of post-merriment trauma - travel time was minimal) was Pukekura, a town with a population of two. It's a surprisingly large town given there are only two inhabitants, included are a cafe, a pub and a museum; The Bushman's Centre. The highlight of which were three possums which you could feed cereal to. These possums were a particular novelty for two reasons. One, they were not road kill. And two, they were not in pies. ("But I don't want to be a pie; I don't like gravy")
Possums are considered pests in New Zealand - natively an Australian creature, they were introduced to the wild in NZ and have been chomping their way through the forests ever since.
From here we headed into Franz Josef, a small town with views of one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. We spent two nights in Franz Josef - with a night out with the bus drivers for those too lazy to spend 8 hours the next day on the ice. All the bus drivers I had had up to this point had been absolutely hilarious and brilliant fun to hang out with. There are 35 drivers in total and I'd travelled with 6 of them and 3 out of the 5 girls.

Day 6 on the South Island was a long day of travelling, split up thankfully by some some scenic stops. We stopped at Lake Matheson where on a clear day you can see the reflections of the Southern Alps mirrored around you. However, as it wasn't a clear day you could only see the refliections of the trees and some clouds. Still, it made for a nice picture and for the more energetic of us that morning, namely me, it was a gorgeous route for a jog. What?! Excercise? I know, I was almost as surprised as you. We paused again for pictures in front of the Thunder Creek Falls and the icy blue glacial river. This was an opportunity not to be missed by the extreme paddlers and saw plenty of involuntary dismounts into the water. So cold! Passing through the mountains to shelter, we warmed up quickly and soon were at another lake (there are lots of lakes in South Island) ; Lake Wanaka - our stopover point for the night. Having spent a couple of hours down by the lake and wandering round the town, which is predominantly a ski-resort during the winter, not a lot goes on there in summer, we headed back to the hostel for the evening. Sadly, we had to bid one of our party - none other than Tiger Woods himself - goodbye as he would be jumping on a plane to Canada as soon as we reached Queenstown the next day. I should point out that he wasn't just bored of our company, he did in fact have an important interview to get to... I'm almost certain he was telling the truth! :)

The journey to Queenstown was a short one with a couple of compulsory stops along the way. First of all was Puzzling World, which was a bizarre feature but said to be excellent by those who ventured into the Illusion House and maze. Our friend Thierry certainly got his money's worth and spent some hours trying to navigate his way out; the bus nearly left him behind! There was a free option within the cafe - tables and tables filled with puzzles to while away the hours, which meant I could entertain myself without having to be sociable so early in the morning! Soon we were making our way to Kawarau Gorge where Tiger would be completing his final act in New Zealand - a bungy jump! Of course I scorned his mere 42m jump having completed a lofty 47m myself... Once everyone who wanted to had jumped we headed on down to Queenstown for a final group photograph before we all went our seperate ways. Of course this meant a last night out together, with the legendary teapots in the World Bar and Fergburgers to end the night. If you've never heard of a Fergburger then you would be like me before I'd had one - sceptical as to how a burger could be quite so amazing. But let me assure you, despite the size of it - a whole one was literally the size of my head and half was plenty to fill you up - it tasted incredible too and even if you were full after half - you would honestly rather make yourself ill than not finish it...
My second whole day in Queenstown I spent in Glenorchy, famous for its filmworthy scenery. I toured around it on horseback and had all the noteworthy trees and mounds of earth from the Lord of the Rings films pointed out to me. I even got to see where Boromir was shot three times in the chest. This was particularly enlightening as I had previously thought that Boromir got his head chopped off, but there we are, you learn something new every day. But it wasn't all LOTR geekery, oh no. I saw filming spots from the Narnia films and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In fact my guide in the afternoon had been taking a trek one afternoon while they were filming Wolverine and emerged from the woods, turned a corner and came face to face with Hugh Jackman robed in nothing but a yellow towel. Can't be such a bad job...

The trip from Queenstown to Christchurch was a nightmare - we got on the bus at 8.30am had about 2 hours worth of breaks and got into Christchurch at 4.30pm. Yuck. I spent a couple of hours exploring the town but mostly I had to reorganise my rucksack for jumping on a plane back to Australia the next day. Once I'd eventually got this sorted and had some dinner, one of the girls from the Kiwi bus and I went down to the bar for our complimentary champagne and met an 'interesting' local who'd been asked to leave a cricket game... just as we were about to make our excuses, two of the Irish boys off our bus turned up and were immediately involved in a conversation about Father Ted. Sadly though I had to be up early the next morning and so I excused myself - after a rather emotional phonecall home, and went to bed. I was up at 4 the next morning, heading to Melbourne but thinking about home.