We left Blue Duck Station and made our way to the Tongariro National park. The highlight of this park is a 6-8 hour walk through some beautiful countryside of New Zealand.  Unfortunately, my ankle was still bothering me from when I hurt it in Nicaragua, so we had to skip it.  Mandy also had an unfortunate dental issue that would mean we would have to say goodbye to friends we made on the bus and stay in Wellington for a few days while we got her patched up.  It sounds a lot worse than it turned out to be, and we really enjoyed our time off the bus.

Haka Falls

The largest city we had been to until Wellington was Auckland and we quite honestly weren’t impressed with Auckland.  Wellington was a gem of a town and we wouldn’t encounter anything like it until we landed in Queenstown a few weeks later.

The bus left the day after we arrived in Wellington without us onboard and we were left to our good graces to explore the city.  We found a dentist that got Mandy patched up the very next day at 10 in the morning and we found ourselves with a full two days to explore. There’s a wonderful, free museum called the Te Papa that should cost at least $20 per person to enter, a fantastic food scene including a food court dedicated to nothing but the best asian food we would encounter until Thailand, great bars, and a movie theater where we would see our first movie since leaving Oklahoma in January.  Nevermind that the movie was horrible, we got to sit down in a theater with popcorn and a coke and watch a movie.  The stuff you take for granted…

As much as we had missed our friends on the bus, we soon realized that we very much enjoyed not having to adhere to the schedule of the bus.  We got to sleep in.  We got to do whatever we wanted and we didn’t have to be back at a certain time.  It was a very freeing experience and it goes back to what I was saying about the bus being like church camp.  Our rooms were all booked and we never had to worry about transportation from one place  to another, but there’s a certain level of independence that’s lost doing a tour such as this.

I should mention that we technically had an entire year to do our bus tour.  And indeed we met folks who had jumped off the bus months ago and would just now be jumping back on with us to continue their journey.  We just didn’t have the time to do that. We had booked our plane out of Christchurch and were on a pretty strict schedule.

Two days went by quickly in Wellington, and a new Stray bus pulled up with new people and a new driver, this time nicknamed Possum.  She turned out to be just as awesome as Lolly and the bus was a little smaller, so we again got to know some more people on our new bus.  From Wellington, we would head south and cross via the ferry to the south island and the town of Picton, where we would stock up on supplies (beer), and then head into Marahau where the Abel Tasman National park exists, in all it’s glory.

Our accommodation was right on the edge of the park and we could walk to the entrance, which was free.  The park was beautiful and we really got the sense that the south island would be much more beautiful than the north and that turned out to be very true.

We got up early the next day and headed towards the west coast town of Westport.  The scenery along the way was astonishing, like nothing we’d ever seen before or since.

The highlight of Westport was a brewery tour.  For a small entrance fee, we got to tour a small micro brewery and taste every beer they brewed.  They also cooked sausages and veggies for us for dinner.  I got to pat myself on the back when the guy leading the tour asks if anyone knows what goes into the mix to make beer.  Everyone knew one ingredient – hops- because we had driven by fields where they grow hops and Possum got on the mic to tell us all about them.  It got quiet when he asked what else goes into the vat.  So I spoke up. “Barley, wheat, water, and yeast.”  Possum busted up laughing…apparently not a lot of people know what goes into beer.  I know for, uh..research purposes or something.

We all went to a local bar afterwards and played pool and drank some more beer.  This being a mining town, the girls (remember the ratio?) were all warned that the locals would hit on them.  I doubted that but about halfway through the evening, I looked up to find our table had grown by about half because the girls were fleeing the locals who had indeed sat down next to them and started chatting them up.

We found out the next day that we (Mandy and Me) would be getting dropped off at Greymouth and would have to stay two nights to wait for the next Stray bus to pick us up.  Here’s what happened:  When we had to jump off in Wellington, I called up Stray’s HQ and told the to cancel the rest of our planned route and we’d call them back to reschedule since we didn’t know how long we’d have to stay to get Mandy’s tooth fixed.  I called back as soon as we were back from the dentist and they said we could make it to Greymouth, but there was no room on the bus for us and we’d have to catch the next one.

It turns out Stray used to stop in Greymouth, but no longer does and I can tell you why right now.  Greymouth is the armpit of New Zealand.  There’s just nothing to do there and the town is tiny and ugly.  The only redeeming thing about this town was the lovely little hostel we stayed in.  It had the fastest internet we had seen since arriving in New Zealand and they didn’t charge per MB for it like most other places.   There was also no one else staying there so it was quiet.  We passed the time getting caught up on our blog and cooking lunches and dinner for ourselves.  There just wasn’t much else to do.

Our new bus arrived two days later and we met yet another group and a new driver, this time named Tutu.  I should just go ahead and say now that all of the bus drivers were great.  Each with their own personalities as distinct as their nicknames and each just a ton of fun.  You can tell they like what they do.

Our next stop was the Franz Joseph glacier!  Something we had been looking forward to!  And so of course the weather wasn’t cooperating and we didn’t get to hike on the glacier.  But!  We did take our fist helicopter ride and see the glacier up close.  It was amazing and actually cost less than actually hiking the glacier, so…Yay?!  We were sad we didn’t get to see the glacier up close, but the chopper ride was worth it.

Oh the place we were staying at in Franz Joseph was great. They had an all  you can eat pizza night and we ate all the pizza we could eat, along with all the beer we could drink, which would serve us well in preparation for the greatest city in all of New Zealand, Queenstown.  We’d visit for two days and return for another three after visiting Milford Sound and Stewart Island.  To be continued…