The little town of westport :)

Our next stop would be westport...... We had a few hour journey first and stop at Nelson National Park,  it was pretty cold that day that will be the coldest day we had so far we were  feeling the chill! The National Park had a beautiful lake with mountains in the background and being by the water made it even colder! we sat down had a look at the views I ate my vegetarian quiche, while sitting eating a duck well one particular duck would literally come right up tp my food and try to take it out my hand! What a very brave duck! Luke shod it off time and time again but it came back and back and back.....in the end I threw the quiche at the ducks and seagulls and they had great pleasure fighting over it! I have never seen ducks and seagulls in such close proximity together! We sat out here for a while but it got pretty cold so we got back on the bus.

.......we encounter some lovely scenary on the way down to westport...

Before we knew it we were in westport...it was a lovely little town that consisted of one main road full of little boutique shops, a supermarket, post office and a takeaway! There were roads of houses but that was it!.....

.......it was quite literally deserted, there was a beach close by and a area for fishing and a look out, I say close by it was around a 50 minute walk but the walk wasn't so bad it was on flat ground and had beautiful mountain views to look at! We arrived at our hostel "bazils" there were two bus loads of people so it was jam packed but we had already pre booked a double private room....thank god! It was a lovely hostel, it played reggae music all day, had a lovely little garden  with hammocks and seats all around.....

 

....it was quite different to all the other hostels we had stayed in :) the ownersw ere super friendly aswell and gave us lots of free wifi! 

We didn't do a u of the activities the kiwi bus was organising because again it was super expensive and our budget just couldn't do it, we really didn't no how the others were doing it! So we decided we would do some walks, walk to the beach and hopefully do some fishing :)

The owner was really kind and offered to lend us his fishing rods for free and told us a good free place to fish! And he also took us out on his fishing boat to assist him bring in crates from the sea he had previously put there with bait in to catch crayfish, we were excited! It was a small boat and the sea was pretty choppy that day! We had to hold on tight ! We were so lucky that day as we saw wild dolphins and seals it was really amazing to see them in there natural environment :) There was a bit of a petrol leak at one point which made Luke feel sick he said the current of the sea and the petrol fumes made him feel ill he was ok after a while! There was only a few crayfish caught as a few of the crates were open, we couldn't get to a couple of them as the sea was so strong it was to dangerous, at one point the boat just stopped working and we were going to hit the rocks! I had no idea what was going on at the time! But we could have had to jump out ! Pretty scary! Anyway Luke was assisting with the others with the crates....

 

 .....Luke really enjoyed it learning new things and doing things he hadn't done before I loved watching him :) in that second pic you can see the crayfish and the other bucket is full of fish heads which he used for bait! The crayfish were still alive in the box and on the way back they were. Really terrifying me ! And the owner decided he would get one out and put it on my arm! Well it's safe to say I was terrified I scream and cried I was so scared! He apologised after he said he thought I was joking when i said I was scared! Poor Luke couldn't get to me as we were going so fast and you couldn't let go when we got off he said he was really worried bless him :)) definitely the highlight of that trip for me was seeing the dolphins and seals what a memory :)

When we was on solid ground again we decided to go fishing that same day, we borrowed the rods and set off to the coast,  in new zealand you can fish for free in the sea and 150 meters in land from the sea, so that's what we did, we planted ourselves on some rocks.....

 

......and began spinner fishing something I had never done before and something Luke hadn't done that often, it was such fun :) and easy to do, the first place we started we caught nothing so we went further towards the sea and literally was catching one after the other ! We caught fish called "kahawai" they were pretty beautiful fish, the owner wanted us to bring back at least 6 we caught over ten but we put them all back, it was pretty hard to get the hooks out as we had no net to get the fish up to us so it was quite tricky but we managed it and to kill them we would of had to slit there throats, bleed them and carry them all back ! Some of them were up to 8 pounds it would have been quite hard to carry them all that way back with all out bear as well! And I just couldn't face killing them! I knew that that is what New Zealanders do but us english are generally not allowed to catch, kill and eat so we decided not to, he was a little disappointed but we explained why we didn't bring them back he understood. He had a few different types of fish that he let Luke try including crayfish which he liked! That fishing trip was really worth it and we had a amazing time, and were so pleased we got to do it :) .....

 

.....what a fun day :)))

We also had a wonder to the beach one of the days.....

 

......it was a lovely beach, very unspoilt it wasn't touristy at all which was nice :) it had a lot of driftwood on it which we found odd! We didn't go swimming it was a bit chilly but enjoyed strolling along it :)) 

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed westport we had a lot of fun for free :)) the hostel and owners were great and we would defo go back if we had the chance :)