While I was staying with K and J in Auckland they told me the easiest way to get through the South Island was with New Zealand buses. Although I had flown into Nelson the bus networks in New Zealand are quite efficient.
But the most famous one was the Kiwi Experience which was the sister company to the FeeJee experience that Barbara took in Fiji and I saw the type of people on that bus. I was not 19 and not on my Gap Year and I really didn’t want to hang out with people who were getting plastered every night. Not that I don’t like to drink, afterall I was just on a tour of New Zealand vineyards but I preferred to drink with people my own way.
So I went online and started looking for New Zealand buses, there had to be an alternative to the Kiwi Experience.
And I found one! I am travelling through the South Island on the Magic Bus shuttle service which I think is now called the Magic Travellers Network - regardless the photo above is not the actual bus in New Zealand they use coach buses. There are several of these companies that will pick you up and drop you off at different hostels and also help you book activities. Basically you just book the locations you want to go to and you can hop on and off whenever you want.
I was quite surprised how much I liked Magic Bus. All the girls from the wine tour were riding it. It’s a pretty good group of people and very diverse in age. The nice thing about it is that they stop several times on your way from one location to the next so that you can take a look at some of the tourist things you would have missed. The driver is also very good pointing out things and telling you what to do/where to stay.
There were tons of times where there would be something interesting that we would pass and people probably wanted photos so they just stopped the bus and let us out for a photo opp and then we were back on the bus.
Also you never had to worry about hostels, they knew you were on a budget so they would put a call out to see who needed a place to stay and then would call ahead. It was nice to know so many people from the bus were also staying at the hostel because then people would make plans to go out once everyone settled in.
Although I was traveling solo I was never really alone and people, even the couples, were so warm and welcoming. It was nice that I found the Magic Bus and I highly recommend it to others. A few times The Kiwi Experience also came up in conversation, some of the people had started on that bus and realized it wasn’t right for them. The Gap Year students weren’t as interested in the sights as they were getting drunk in each city. On our bus people were just a bit older so they still wanted to drink but also make sure they got to see some of New Zealand in between.
A few highlights on the way to Greymouth were Paparoa National Park and a 40 minute walk around Truman Track to see the coastline. I would have never seen these if I had tried to fly or drive on the South Island.
And Punakaiki where there were Pancake Rocks which weren’t as impressive as the seal habitat. Unfortunately, like most animals, seals are often a color for camouflage so if you squint your eyes you can see them on the rocks.
The only bad thing about taking the bus networks is that you have to stop in Greymouth, which is frankly not a nice city but more on that in the next post.
Photo (c) Gene Hunt - Creative Commons
