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This blog covers our journey from Picton (where we got off the ferry to the South Island) to Greymouth which is sort of in the middle of the West Coast.
The South Island so far has been really beautiful and we are sort of getting view fatigue from all the amazing scenery but we do slightly miss the telly-tubby land of the North Island.
From Picton we headed out towards Nelson, drove till the sun set and stopped over for the night at a really nice campsite by a lake on the way.
At Nelson we wanted to do a 2 and half hour horse trek but unfortunately the trekking company had a abig ride on so we just got to do an hour farm trek which was lovely nontheless. Laura rediscovered her love of riding while Kate got a sore bum as her horse decided all it wanted to do was stop and eat or go for a trot. On the walk the guide pointed out so famous horses to us, Legolas' horse and "an extra" in the Lord of the Rings Films, much to Kate's amazment who persuaded Laura to stop and take a picture. We also went for a short walk earlier in the day along the river and got a little bit lost and missed our turning to this memorial we were meant to be heading for but it was all OK because Kate found a swing to play on anyway and some nice old people walked past and said "it's nice to see a big girl on a swing" somewhat to her embarassment.
As the horse riding place was just South of Nelson, we decided to keep heading South and found a campsite on the road. From there we headed to Westport, taking in the magnificent secnenry as we drove and having fun driving round the winding road.
At West port we went and admired a colony of seals living on the coast. Laura's attempt of impersonating them, sent kate into hysterics and frightened the girl walking down the path at the time.
From West port we headed North to Karamea (translated means the end of the road and it literally is) after travelling down some steep and windy off road dirt tracks for about an hour we came across a car park which led to walks through the beautiful rainforest to see some big limestone arches. The smaller arch of the two required us to clamber through a cave to get to it. As it was getting dark we camped that night in the rainforest rather than trying to attempt the dirt track in the dark. The next morning we walked to a Mirror Tarn, which was a very reflective pond.
The we headed back towards Westport and continued South towards Greymouth stopping on the way to admire some rocks that apparently look like pancakes (Laura was not impressed).
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