Aoraki Polytechnic cookery students Hannah Farmer (17) and Chris Devery (18) left Timaru on Thursday night on the overnight service, with the aim of having a four-day break in Invercargill.
Feeling ill before the journey, Miss Farmer began vomiting on board and asked the bus driver to stop several times before telling him they were getting out permanently, when the bus was at the start of the Kilmog, about midnight.
"I didn't care - I had to get out," she said.
Despite the Knight Rider bus driver telling them the start of the Kilmog was only a 30-minute drive to Dunedin, Miss Farmer and her partner decided to walk the remainder of the trip from "the middle of nowhere".
Miss Farmer continued to vomit as the couple trudged south in icy conditions over the Kilmog, wearing all their clothes in an effort to keep warm.
After four hours walking along the side of State Highway 1, the couple found temporary shelter in an old garage at Waitati. When Miss Farmer failed to get better, an ambulance was called and she was taken to Dunedin Hospital before being released at noon yesterday.
Miss Farmer's mother, Heather Woodrow, of Oamaru, said she was disappointed the bus driver let the two teenagers out of the bus in a remote area.
But Knight Rider owner-operator David Bolton said his driver had acted appropriately.
The driver had stopped several times for Miss Farmer at her request and when they insisted on getting out on the final stop, he told them Dunedin was only a half-hour drive away.
"It was their choice. We offered help and they refused it."
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