13th Novemeber 2007. Kaikoura to Abel tasman.

OK jumped on bus today, Graham and the posse is still doing my head in, and this is a long day, actually most of these bus journeys seem like a long day.

OK this bus is not just a bus from this town to that town, it actually does a tour aswell, and stops in interesting places and you get commentary all the time about the places you are and the things you see around you.

So we stopped at a seal colony which was just up the road about 30mins from Kaikoura, seals are kind of cool, they are just lazing around on a rock, which is alright for some. guess when i think about it that it what i am doing lazying around on a big rock we call a country. nice :)

so there was about 20 seals on these rocks, as i said just chilling out. as they do. jumped back on the bus. the east coast looks very nice, kind of reminds me of the great ocean road in OZ, but not as beautiful. we are driving right on the coast up, the sea and lots of rock formations are to the east and inland to the west is lots of mountains, the distant ones have snow on them, but mainly they are just grass mountains.

so anyway did a few more stops, where we was able to take some lovely views of the coast and surrounding areas. Then we went off to picton, which is where you get the ferry over to wellington which is the north island. however i am not going on there yet, i have the rest of the south to explore.

Some good news though, that dick head graham is getting off here, good good. So about 5 people got off here and we ended up picking up about 15 people from the north island. From here i lost the current guide a woman called Nads (yeah nice name, she as ok not a great guide) But we now picked up a guide called bagginz (yes like lord of the rings) he seems pretty cool, rather chatty and jokey so this could be fun. then we went along to Abel Tasman which is a national park at the top of the south island.

The hostel we are staying at is called "Old Macdonald's farm". mmmm nice name, it is actually a farm fully working but has some huts in the middle somewhere where they have put in bunk beds. bit disorganised if i say so, as the guide paid for the rooms with everyones money and just put a bit of paper up with all the rooms we had to choose from. I didn't mind really as i ended up on my own in a three bed room. sweet, nice and peaceful.

By the time we got to the hostel/farm, it was 7pm, so by the time everyone cooked and there was only 4 hobs between about 20 of us, i finally got to cook at 9pm. so had dinner, chilled out played some guitar in my room. got some sleep.

Looks like a lot of people tomorrow are doing a 4 hrs hike through the national park then getting a yacht back. some are doing the other way round. one is doing a full day sailing on a yacht.

however i have decided i will just go for a walk, try and save some money.