Lake Mahinapua

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We set off from Westport at a farily leisurely 9:30AM, and I have to admit my hangover wasn't too bad after a night on the Mac's Gold instead of Tui or (shudder) Xport Gold.

This wasn't going to be much of an activity day, as the West Coast of New Zealand has such amazing scenery that it didn't need to be. We wound through twisty roads overlooking the sea on one side, it was breathtaking. We also stopped at the 'Pancake Rocks', which looked like a big stack of pancakes (make your own mind up from the photos (!)).

Derrrrinking time !

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The main attraction for this day was a fancy dress party at a remote pub / hostel run by a bloke called Les, who is 82 years old. Its all a bit random, and is obviously just a way for the Kiwi Experience to break up the long trek down the west coast of the south island.

Now I am not known for being a huge fan of fancy dress parties. On many a Sidney bop night, I would proudly take the extra pound on the chin (1 quid entry in fancy dress, 2 quid in normal clothes), proclaiming it to be the best pound I'd ever spent. Previous analogies of the pain involved in fancy dress, sticky dancefloors, and watered-down lager in plastic cups involved rusty spoons, self castration, and a bucket of salt.

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Aaanyway, that said, there isn't really any other option when you're out in the middle of nowhere like in this 'Poo-pub'. We were dropped at Greymouth, and the race was on to find a costume to match the theme of 'When I grow up, I want to be ...'. I was pretty stuck for ideas, but when I saw a hard-hat in the salvation army shop, I thought it would be an easy one to get. I bought an old lumberjack shirt, some plastic tools, and other builder's gear.

The party itself was actually quite a good laugh, we played a Danish drinking game called 'Bollucks', and generally enjoyed it. After the party had closed down a bit, Steve, Heidi, and I headed off to the beach for some more red wine. We ended up chatting until about 3AM about life in general, with the sound of the waves crashing around us in the pitch black, it was really cool.