Welcome back. All good? Manage to make it through that last rather long blog? That’s good.

Oh, you didn’t?….let’s just pretend you did.

Ok so we are leaving Wellington and the north island behind us in search of the tiny weenie town of Kaiteriteri (ky-tiri-tiri). First however we would need to grab our stuff and head for the bus by 6am so we could then catch our morning ferry to the south island. I imagined this journey to be a bit of a formality. That the gap between the north and south was close enough to step over if you were in a rush. Alas, I was very wrong. All together with the 45 minute waiting around time, it took us just under 4 hours to reach the other side. The journey was actually rather comfortable and some of us even managed to spot a group of dolphins guiding us toward our destination. Most people had fallen back to sleep though.

We had heard many great things about the south island. Mainly that it was even more breathtaking than the north. Something made clearly evident the second the island came into view. Never before has the phrase “the grass is greener” been more appropriate. The mountains are higher, the trees are greener and the water bluer. The sea weaved its way into the main land so as if we were now floating down a river. Hills either side of us hid private little beaches with a tiny house and bloke sitting on his boat fishing away. It was a beautiful sight, but as I said before, most people were too busy sleeping to actually see it.

After we docked and then caught another long bus, we arrived at Kaiteriteri. A miniscule town on the edge of the huge Abel Tasman National Park. If I remember rightly he was some Dutch bloke who stumbled across New Zealand a little before Captain Cook but instead of being nice he shot a couple of the natives who intern killed a couple of his men. Fair to say he didn’t particularly care for this land much after that. Never the less he has a large park named after him, and we were there to see it.

We checked into our room and quickly headed out to see the beach less than 50ft away from the hostel. Unfortunately we had forgotten we were in New Zealand and that even when it’s super sunny, it’s very rarely warm. So we headed back inside, had some dinner and then headed to the bar. But not for drinks. Oh no. Tonight was quiz night.

We had been desperate for a quiz night for weeks. All the hostels we stay at usually put something on each night to entertain the guests and usually it’s a quiz night. But every time we get to one we are either a day late or we are leaving the day before. So there was no way were going to miss this. We sat down and invited a couple of random girls to join our team. They were training to be vets so undoubtedly had some brain power in there somewhere. Then we also invited a couple if 18 year old girls who we’d met on the boat that morning, Millie and Kavita. There were no boys…

…there’s never any boys….

…Any who we smashed the quiz. I mean we didn’t win it but we did beat Courtney’s sister’s team and that really was all we cared about. Ziggy and her team had no chance against our mighty brains. Interestingly the hostel we were staying in was run by some bloke who, in his day, was rather famous for founding some kids tv programme called the Wiggles. I’ve never heard of him or his programme but perhaps some of you have. After acting as quiz master he picked up his guitar and sung a few songs at literally the loudest volume ever. A rocket could have been taking off behind us and we’d have never heard it over his racket. We went to bed pretty sharpish after that.

This place was literally reserved for the Kiwi Experience travellers only so was packed pretty much every night. Although they only guarantee you one night here, we were told we should try and stay two. However when we got there they told us there was no way we could do that. That day two full buses were turning up and they had no room. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem. We would go for a walk and find somewhere else to stay. But in Kaiteriteri there is nowhere else. Nowhere at all. And we’d already reserved our places on the next days bus. So we were in a spot of bother here.

Thankfully one of the two receptionist had the power to force out a smile at least once a fortnight and we just so happened to find her on that very day. She organised for us and a few others to be taken to a near by town where another hostel could take us in. However we weren’t the only ones in need of some where to stay. Ziggy and her mates were shipped off to a place apparently just 10 minute walk away from the beach. While we were driven 20 minutes out to a place called Old McDonald’s Farm in the middle of nowhere. At first we were pretty angry about the situation as the only other people we had for company were a group of dribbling llamas, but soon we made a pretty formidable group and made the best out of our time together. So the three of us accompanied by two Brighton girls, Beckie and Ella, our mates Millie and Kavita from the quiz and the lovely Claire from our room in Wellington, set off for a walk through the National Park.

At first the girls were not too keen on the idea of walking up and down hills even if it did result in some pretty fantastic views. However as time has gone on they have really come to enjoy a nice stroll. And this one was lovely. We came across private beaches and panoramic views we never would have seen had we stayed in Kaiteriteri. And our luck was made further evident when we discovered Ziggy and her mates had been shipped to a place where you had to pay for hot water by the minute. We really had been lucky there.

The next day we had to leave Claire behind as she was attempting to spend another night on the farm with only the llamas as friends. As for the rest of us, we were now back on the bus and off to the small surf town of Westport. If you ask me this was another pretty pointless place as there was nothing to do here unless of course your hair was way too long and you spent every waking moment of your life rubbing wax on a long piece of plastic. For this reason we decided to up the excitement levels and offer to sleep in a tent. This also allowed us to save some much needed money, so we jumped at the chance not really considering how cold it might get later on.

A Westport tradition for the Kiwi Experience is to take a late evening bus down to the beach and start a fire. We watched as the Sun set over the sea before looking for some wood to throw on the fire. Things were going really well too. The night sky was one of the best we’d ever seen, clearly showing off the Milky Way in all its glory. Some clever thinking girl thought to bring a bag if marshmallows down with her. She was even kind enough to offer one to each person around the fire. One, that is until Soph stuck her hand in and rather politely came out with half the contents of marshmallows. The girl seemed to consider this for a moment but then smiled and moved on. Never offer your marshmallows to Soph. She will take them. All of them.

Back at our tent we had realised it was a rather silly idea to spend the night freezing to death in order to save ourselves £5. Walking into our tent was like unzipping a porthole to the Antarctic. We had to let two penguins and a family of polar bears out before we could even get in. Thankfully there was plenty of free tea on offer in the kitchen to help us muster up the courage to dive in our beds.

The next morning we wiped away the icicles from our chins and headed to the bus for our next destination, Lake Mahinapoa. Again there is absolutely nothing here. However the story goes that many years ago a Kiwi bus broke down on its way to the glacier town of Franz Joseph. Looking for some help the driver walked into a small pub and asked the owner, Les, if he had room for the passengers to stay the night. He did and was extremely happy to have so many customers. So much so he probably upped the prices and took advantage of them all as much as he possibly could. Anyway from then on Kiwi drivers would pop in to say hi and thank Les for his generosity. This happened so frequently that Kiwi decided to make it a genuine stop on their programme. Unfortunately Les became sick and died a few years later putting an end to the relationship between the pub and Kiwi. Thankfully some bright spark decided there was an awful lot of money to be made and so bought the pub and rekindled the link with Kiwi. So now we stop there again and have a huge fancy dress party in honour of Les. The theme for our fancy dress was bad taste.

At first the girls thought that would mean perhaps something that tastes bad. But no. It meant something disgustingly bad that even Hitler would consider it out if order. In fact some went dressed as Hitler. Some went as used sanitary towels. Some even went as members of ISIS. We weren’t quite that bad. I had considered going as dead Les, the dead guy that used to own the pub, but thought it was perhaps a dash too far. I simply went as Lance Armstrong holding a few paracetamol in a food bag and the girls went as two 14 year old pregnant jezebels. However the best and ultimately the winner of this fancy dress contest were our mates Millie and Kavita. During the day, with me acting as a look out, they snuck into the luggage compartment on the bus and stole two of the Kiwi Experience t-shirts from the driver’s bags. They drew on a bit of facial hair and went as the drivers themselves. Obviously everybody loved this and couldn’t believe they had actually managed to sneak into their bags like they had. It turned out to be a really good night and one I’m sure most people would rather not have any pictures from. I can’t imagine having your family see you dressed as a tampon would be high on anyone’s list.

So we moved on again the following morning pretty early. We had to race down there because our old driver Wazza had lost his keys to the bus while searching for the next 18 year old girl to take back to his room. By the time we got there he was walking around like he had just been smacked and sent to his room. Perhaps he should be. Something for the Kiwi head office to consider.

Right so the last town for today’s blog. The beautiful town of Franz Joseph. Positioned at the bottom of a group of mountains the town is the main stop for people wishing to visit one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world. You can catch a helicopter to the top and walk around on the ice, or you can walk high up the mountain and get as close as you can. Walking around on the top of glacier sounded like possibly the coolest thing ever (coolest…get it) but for the price it would cost I was surprised we wouldn’t be able to keep the helicopter that actually took us there. So instead we set off for a walk.

Our mate Millie was feeling pretty rich so took the easy way up via the helicopter. That left the three of us, Kavita, Ziggy and all her buddies to climb to the top. It is important to point out, as I can’t remember if I haven’t already, that young Ziggy was involved in a pretty awful motorbike accident that left her with a mashed up leg not long before coming away. However it also left her with the ever burning desire to take on all the sorts of activities someone with a bad leg probably shouldn’t be doing. And it was that sort if never say die attitude that not only got her up the mountain, but all of us.

Perhaps the sign at the beginning that said this walk was for experienced mountaineers only should have put us off, but instead it just spurned us all on. This wasn’t just any old walk. It was climbing over huge rocks, jumping across waterfalls, clambering through fallen trees. Along the way we would ask those coming back down how far we had left. Surprisingly this went from half hour to 60 minutes to 90 minutes the closer we got. Nobody seemed to have any idea. Then we came face to face with two boys on their way down. Funny enough they seemed to look similar to some people we’d met in Australia….

…No honestly that really does look like Sam and Will from Fraser Island…

HOLY SMOKES IT IS SAM AND WILL.

There we are half way up a mountain in the middle if New Zealand and we come face to face with people we know. It’s a small world as they say…crazy.

When we eventually reached the summit the glacier was right there in front of us. It wasn’t as good or as close as we hoped but to be honest the walk was worth all the pain. We lost count of the waterfalls we saw falling from the top of the glacier. We even managed to do the whole thing without Ziggy’s leg falling off completely. A huge achievement all round. By the time we got back to the hostel we had been walking for 9 hours and could no long feel our feet. The walk was meant to last a maximum of 6 hours, so what took us so long we don’t know. Perhaps it was the fact we had to save Court and Soph from their deaths as they slipped down the rocks almost every time they stepped foot on one. Perhaps. I don’t know.

Back at the hostel we discovered a whole crew of people that we’d met in Australia were there with Sam and Will. So we spent the evening catching up on how we’d been getting on. It was a great evening.

Ok so that’s that. Made some good progress there. Hopefully things won’t be quite so long tomorrow.

Thanks for following x