Flag Inn Highpark Greymouth

... instead of the other way round. It sounds fine but the drawback was that we had to be at our pick up point - Bark Bay (supposedly a 7 hour walk) - by 3.15pm. It was 8.45am at this point so that left us with 6.5 hours to make it! The lady assured us that it wouldnt take 7 hours for two fit young things like us, but I tell you what - it was bloody hard work! We made it to Bark Bay with about 15 minutes to spare, but we had more or less walked non-stop ...

... at a Seal Colony. Lunch was at the Bay House Café who produced a cracking Fish and Chips from local fish and a nice view across the bay where I could watch the surfers tackle the waves again in brilliant sunshine.

The coastal road lived up to it’s billing with the mountains plunging down to the coast covered in lush temperate rain forest. This was quite a drive. At about 4pm I arrived at Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki where there were some curious rock ...

... Josh discovered what we initially thought was a kiwi in some of the bush by a river, much to our embarrassment later we found out it was a Weka (by this time we were telling other tourists about this amazing opportunity to see a real live Kiwi!). The ride on a small steam train (circa late 1800's) was a treat and the kids had great fun using a pan to find real gold (we only got a few ...

... decided to go to the nearby caves to try and see the glowworms. A few people in our group were successful in seeing them last night. However, because it was daytime and the caves were not very deep, we couldn't see any glowworms. At one point, we may have seen one, but it was difficult to tell. Then, we all packed in the vans and headed to our next stop.

... au Far West... Cest tout juste si ils n ont pas encore les locomotives a vapeur...lol J'ai donc goute a cette experience: prendre le train en Nouvelle-Zelande. Plus precisement, j'ai pris le Tranzalpine, le train qui traverse l'ile du Sud de la cote ouest (Greymouth) a la cote est (Christchurch), en m'arretant au milieu a Arthur's Pass... N empeche, le train a beau aller tres ...

... sea cliffs, up to Punakaki to see the remarkable Pancake Rocks. Here we were also fortunate to see a Weka, a rare flightless bird about the size of a chicken scurrying around the car park. We wished we had alloted more time to spend on the wild and rugged West Coast, but were keen to do a walk on the coast at the Abel Tasman National Park on the North coast of the South Island. Thus we set off across the mountains to Motueka, which was to be our base

... walk around the limestone and mudstone rocks that the sea has erroded at different rates so that they look like huge stacks of pancakes!! there are a few surge pools, that at high tide fill as the waves crash in and cause water to shoot up holes in the rocks, called blowholes! but i missed high tide (by quite a while oops as it was raining i ended up not going until about 7pm!) but, again, like the seals we went up with the bus the next day!! was really glad that we did ...

... the coastal cliffs and coastline. The sea, wind and rain have since etched out the soft layers to form the unusual rock formations we see today. When conditions are right, heavy ocean swells thunder into the caverns beneath the rocks and huge water spouts blast skywards through the blowholes in a truly spectacular sight.

... hard. You got the feeling we would have a backpacker or two missing in the morning!! As it happens, they left soon after we arrived - they must have thought we looked hard! Lol. The place itself was a bit skanky, but we have to remember that Barrytown consists of this pub and about 6 houses! Seriously, there are no shops or anything! I think it's just a halfway point between Abel Tasman National Park and Franz Josef. This evening we had to make our own entertainment so fancy ...

... tonight is Tyrants (for girls) and trash (for boys) and there were a number of dressing up boxes waiting for us when we arrived. I went as the woman in Sweeney Todd (or any crazy lady) - my outfit consisting of a dress, spatula, back combed hair and my slippers. Had a pub dinner of fish and chips and beat TJ at pool (twice), which he absolutely hated, having stated how he "cannot allow a girl to beat me (him) at sport ever" earlier in the day! The ...