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I cant remember where i finished the last blog so im jst gona start from the bus to River Valley! The bus ride to River Valley was pretty uninteresting to be honest, we stopped at a few places on the way, one place being Whakapapa, where "wh" being pronounced as an "F" (haha!). We stopped here whilst a couple of people went for a two hour walk. Instead the majority did a 10 minute walk to a waterfall supposedly used/filmed in LOTR (i swear everything has now been used in LOTR..)
When we got to River Valley it was in the middle of nowhere! literally nothing around, the place felt like one of those outdoor retreats/camps we would go to with the school in like year 6 or something! Me and the girls were lucky enough not to get in the 32 bed dorm (phew). After cooking a yummy stirfry us 4 went to the spa/hot tub, which should really be named warm tub, it was kind of cold sitting in there but as we'd paid to be there we were determined to sit it out and so end up being bitten to death by mozzies and midges! i hate them.
After a lie-in the next morning I treated myself to a bacon, egg and hashbrown sandwich!! HEAVEN! ahhh thinking about it now makes me soo hungry and it doesnt help that this internet computer is by the computer with people cooking dinner.. We then spent hours sitting around waiting for the people that had gone white water rafting, i thought it was too expensive for something i wasnt that bothered about doing so i didnt go! at least it gave me time to ctachup writing up my lil diary. We then had a mission of a hill to trek up to get the bus! exhausting!! but we got to the bus and headed to Wellington stopping at a place called Bulls.
The four of us girls apparently like to be awkward and we stayed in Nomads instead of the Kiwi default hostel of Base, and to be honest it was the best decision ever because we got a free dinner, the room was cheaper and the place was nicer! Score! We had a little wander round town getting blown about by the crazy annoying wind that doesnt ever stop! This wind turned out to be very annoying in the morning aswell, as we were waiting outside at 7am to be picked up the wind was ridiculously strong and very cold! not a nice way to wake up!
We got the 3 hour ferry across from wellington to picton on south island, hadnt realised it would be 3 hours! We all took some travel sickness tablets which apparently knocked us out for majority of the ride and only woke once when the ferry did a big roll making my belly roll aswell! thank goodness we all missed the worst part of the ride and i woke up with enough time to buy a yummy bbq meatlovers pizza! omnomnom (im sure i always end up writing about food... i swear im just constantly eating/hungry! i love it).
We arrived in nelson at our hostel, fern lodge, which was really really nice, more like a hotel than a hostel and our room was really nice although very hot, but thats probably also because the weather was AWESOME!! We had a wander round town which is really cute and the buildings have lots of character i think! I think Nelson is my favourite city/place we've visited so far (weather has probably helped to contribute to this decision but the place itself was really nice too!) Me and Miranda ended up going for a longer walk and walked up the river going through and it was gorgeous! such a peaceful place, i think we could have walked for hours if we hadnt prebooked our dinner at the hostel for 7! Roast Beef and all the trimmings!! including yorkshire pudding! heaven! wasnt even sunday! and then we got a big chocolate fudge cake after! one of the best meals of the holiday! We were all really sad and went to bed really early, like 10ish coz we just cudnt keep our eyes open! hahaha we're so cool!
Getting up at 6am was not so much fun and slightly cold but we had to get up and get ready to be taken to the Abel Tasman National Park for a full day of kayaking! This ends up being the best day of my trip! I cant recommend doing the full kayaking day enough! Weather was perfect blue sunny skies! After driving to the Park which took about an hour we got an aqua taxi to drop us off at a secluded beach and lagoon along the coast! The water in the place is incredible, infact all the way around the sea was just ridiculous. I've never seen water like it, perfect turquoise/greeny colour and sooooo clear! clearest, cleanest, best water ever. i literally dont think fiji could have water more perfect! its got a lot to live up to now! Me and Miranda partnered up for kayaking (all kayaks were two person) and we turned out to be a wicked team storming off in front! We paddled out to a little island where there were seals and a tiny lil baby one which was really cute! and we continued to make our way around the coastline and going in to paddle round the lagoons now and again! For lunch we picked one of the many secluded, empty, gorgeous sandy beaches and parked up there for an hour and half maybe more where we had a massive picnic! The only downside to teh beaches is that there appear to be lots of buzzing bumble bees and quite a few wasps which i didnt enjoy. and while we were sitting eating lunch a massive sting ray swam passed right at the edge of the water! i then went snorkelling after lunch didnt see much apart from some fish and then one tiny jellyfish which was about 1cm long with a red rim on the edge and i saw it swimming (do they swim?! it was pulsing anyway) towards me and i figured it was time to leave so i made a speedy exit! dont want to be stung by a jelly fish! and i was thinking arent the small ones the more dangerous ones to be stung by?!
After lunch we continued on with our paddling and at one point we joined all the kayaks together and put up a sail to sail to our next stop but it was sooooo slow, i was like why arent we just paddling because we'd get there in half the time. we were all sitting there like ummm HURRY UP! haha. we got to the next beach which had a massive boulder rock which had been dropped and broken in half, looked pretty cool. When i walked along the becah to go and have a closer look i was looking at the rock and not what i was walking on (why wud I, its just a sandy beach) and then i felt this massive squelch and jellyish slippery thing and turned out i'd just trodden on a jelly fish and squished it and broken it in half! haha OOPS! at least i didnt get stung! freaked me out a bit. a group sitting a couple of metres away thought it was quite funny tho.. Eventually we made it back to our start point after the best day ever!
In the evening we went out for pizza and found a lil pizza place just round the corner which was awesome because the guy working there was a HOTTIE! we all really enjoyed him, so we ended up eating in! haha! pizza was also really yummy, like a proper italien pizza not the greasy pizzahut/dominoes kind! We headed to the bar for a little tipple after and i got a vodka lemonade and lime which was yummy and went back for another only to be told by the barman that a single is only 15ml!!!!! WTF! that is nothing lol at least its nothing compared to england and you pay similar prices if not more! mental. they had an offer on double shot of flavoured vodka and mixer so i got a vanilla vodka and lemonade, it was quite nice, tasted like cream soda! bit too sickly tho. dont think i'll be having it again any time soon. Was really looking forward to bed because knackered after a full day kayaking, we tried to work out how far we'd kayaked and worked it out to be a minimum of 15km mayb closer to 20km! woahhhh! go us! So i wasnt too impressed when the 2 guys that had come to sleep in our dorm room woke me up wen they came in and then one snored like a BEAST! i literally couldnt even believe the noise he was making, i really thought he was joking when it started. and the room was so hot. really bad nights sleep after, so definitely not feeling fresh in the morning! Good news was that Miranda, even tho on the waiting list for the bus out of Nelson, she got on our bus! YAY! :D
Our bus headed off to the Nelson Lakes but the weather was really grey and unpleasant so we didnt stay too long, but long enough for us to get bitten by the millions of sandflies in the area! Some really cute ducks there and ducklings which were really friendly! We continued our bus journey to Westport which was our destination for the one night. The Little hostel we stayed in was really cute and we all just fancied a movie sesh so ended up watching The Man who Sued God, then Anchor Man followed by Blue Crush. I then spent the night dreaming about surfing! it was awesome/ I was awesome! HAHAHA I wish!
ok this blog is long enough! almost caught up to where I actually am!! (oh and ive just realised the blog entry image is the round rock that was split in half that i was talking about)
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