Poo Pub- kiwi!

We left Christchurch on the TranzAlpine express which took us from east to west, finishing in the town of Greymouth. The views from the train were magnificent; we travelled alongside a gorgeous blue river and through Arthur’s Pass where we stopped at the highest train station in New Zealand. As a result of the stunning scenery, the TranzAlpine appeared to be a great tourist attraction rather than a way of getting from A to B.

Unfortunately for us the Kiwi bus that we then joined onto in Greymouth had come from the north island so everyone else had been on it for about a week and already know each other quite well. Despite this, we have been welcomed onboard and seem to have a good bus full of people our age.

When we got on the bus the driver told us that on arrival at our hostel at Lake Mahinapua we were going to be having a fancy dress themed party and the theme was pimps and prostitutes.... nice ice breaker for us. So we went off and kitted ourselves out with some very fetching leopard print tights. After getting to the hostel we went to see the lake but it was getting a bit cloudy so we didn't stay long. We then had a BBQ, served by Les the legendary owner of the poo pub, and got ready for the party.

Another thing about us being the last two was that there weren’t any rooms with two spaces left so we had to separate and I ended up in the Dutch room. This turned out well though as they were all good fun and the boys were completely hyper; they were really getting into character having dressed up as prostitutes. We had a good night meeting all the people in the best way we know how- getting as drunk as possible.

The next day we journeyed to Franz Josef where we stopped at a cafe cross museum to learn about the original methods of catching deer. This involved a video showing us men jumping from low flying helicopters onto the unsuspecting deer.