Before the post I want to wish the love of my life
happy birthday J I wish you
could be here celebrating with me – love you!
Hello everyone!!! I have been
MIA for past couple of days but I have strong internet here and so I want to
share what I have been up to the past few days!
Thursday:
We left Abel Tasman and
headed down the coast. We had tons of stops which was so nice because I like
breaking up the long distance drives. We drove along the Buller river which is
one of the longest rivers in NZ. We stopped in the Buller gorge, Kilkinney
Point for a stretch.
Then we headed along the
coast and stopped off at a seal colony in Taronga Bay! The point is called Cape
Foul Wind. The seals are adorable!!!
Back onto the bus and after a
couple hours we were driving along the water! It was such a beautiful sight –
Lonely Planet rated the drive we took the “top 5 drives in the WORLD!” It was
some of the most beautiful scenery yet J
We then headed to The Pancake
Rocks! The place we stopped in was called Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and
Blowholes. These rocks are super awesome – they look like a whole bunch of
pancakes stacked up!
Finally our day ended with
our stop for the evening – Blackball, NZ. Boy this place sucked. It is a town
(or a few buildings) made up of miners. We stayed at a old historic hotel
called the Hilton. It was very old and there was nothing to do in Blackball so
all of us Stray passengers drank and drank some more. We played kings
all.night.long. It was so fun getting to know all the passengers and just
hanging out with friends. One of the rules in the game was that if you cussed
you had to put your forehead on the table until someone else cussed – well the
only two people who cuss is Brittany and I – we had our heads on the table for
most of the evening!
Brittany cussing too much!
Friday:
Thank god we finally left
Blackball. We had a few more stops today until we made it to Franz Josef …
We stopped in Hokitka which
is a bigger town and the town is known for its Jade. After going to the grocery
we headed to the jade factory to see the stuff – pretty awesome!! I bought a
little necklace J
Next was Lake Mahinapua –
this lake is supposed to be BEAUTIFUL but we got there right when it started
raining. That didn’t stop us from having some fun though J
Then we finally got into
FJ - pouring cats and dogs but again
that did not stop us – we went to the Monsoon bar and had a great ole time!
View from my room - after the rain stopped!
Saturday (today!)
Woke up pretty early to rain
(it finally cleared but later in the day) and walked around the town. Its only
a few blocks but it’s a really neat place.
We went to the West Coast
Wildlife Centre and saw some Kiwi’s!!! They are native to NZ and super awesome
to see – they are nocturnal so it was dark but still pretty cool.
We then had lunch at The
Landing and I had a delicious salad! YUMMM!
Now I am doing laundry –
catching up on some emails and heading to happy hour and dinner soonJ
We are headed to Wanaka
tomorrow so we shall see what that has in store! Hopefully no more rain!
southern alps!
