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Day 154- The bus was due to leave at 8:30am and as we waited we spoke to several others who were waiting. We discovered that most people already had problems with Stray so it didn't look good. The bus was late to get away as one girl had email confirmation that she was on the bus but the drivers list said otherwise and apparently that's the be all and end all. In the end he reluctantly squeezed her on, typically on the back row where we were sitting so we weren't too happy. We drove on through mile after mile of beautiful countryside until we came to Murchison- it was bizarre being back again, we popped into the supermarket for snacks as we weren't due into Blackball until 6ish. From here we drove along the coast through Westport and came to a place commonly known as 'Pancake Rocks' (It is officially known as Punakaiki). It was not clear why until about half way along the trail where these rock formations bore an unbelievable resemblance to a stack of pancakes. There were various different formations and holes known as 'blow holes' where when a big wave came in, it would push it's way through the cave and then force its way upward through any vents it could find along the way, some of them were quite big and were amazing to watch. We drove on all the way to Blackball from here and once we arrived we simply couldn't understand why. It was a village of 350 people with nothing to see or do. It was an old coal-mining town with forgotten coal-mining families. The town of Greymouth was 20km away and much bigger with lots to do and yet here we were in Blackball. That night we wrote up the blog and made jacket potato with beans as the kitchen consisted of a sink and microwave- again unusual as everyone on the bus usually cooked for themselves. It was altogether an unusual place, it is an old hotel- more of a B&B actually and was initially called the Hilton Blackball, that was until the giant hotel chain 'Hilton' came along and told them off for copyright. Since then and to this day it is called 'Formerly the Hilton Blackball'. It had a bar downstairs which put on games and the rooms had a kinky boudoir feel. We later found out that Stray owned this hotel which all made perfect sense. After asking and even offering to pay, the receptionist refused to turn on the WiFi until the morning, this was so you would spend money in their bar and play their daft games, getting drunk, spending more and more cash on the same company we spent a fortune on to buy a bus pass with. As you can tell this annoyed us as we like to spend our money at locally owned business' and avoid big chains.
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mam i would be a bit mad aswell xxxx