Final Trip - Day 5: Nelson

We had to be checked out of the hostel by 10, but free breakfast ended at 9 so we had planned to get up at 8:30 for breakfast and then pack up and check out. I did get up at 8:30, brushed my teeth and washed my face. But then, I realized that no one else seemed to be moving and the breakfast really wasn’t that good anyway, so I just went back to sleep! It turned out no one actually got up for breakfast, so after we checked out, we headed into town (Nelson) to get some food.

We all split up in town and planned to meet back at the cars at 12:30. I went with Brian, Kelly and Cate to a Swedish bakery (the only one in New Zealand) and had a DELICIOUS cinnamon bun.

The lady inside was so cute and friendly. She was talking with us and telling us about their shop and just being really nice. Everything in the bakery shop looked so good that I bought a “chocolate mud muffin” to have later on.

Notice the cinnamon buns in the left case!!

We walked around the town, poking around in some shops and stuff. Cate, Brian and I climbed up to this church at the top of the hill where we had a little view over the town.Then, I decided that the cinnamon bun was SO good and this might be the last time I could ever have one, so I went back to get another one! I was very glad I did. Cate and I got back to the cars before everyone else, and both cars had parking tickets. Not one of the eleven of us thought about having to pay for parking. (Sad, I know, Dad!) Anyway, where we had to pay the fine was actually right across the street so we just went over and paid it right away. We split up the cost between us and it only wound up being $6 a person – not too bad for a stupid mistake.

We filled up the cars with gas and then headed to return the rental cars. When we got there, the guy just came over and drove us to the airport in our respective rental cars, except he drove instead of us! Kind of a weird setup, but it worked – we just kept our luggage in the trunk.

The Nelson Airport was the most lackadaisical airport I have ever been to. None of us had to show any form of identification or go through any type of security or baggage check. Both Brian’s and my plane tickets were on my credit card, but he just gave his name and they gave him a ticket. Since the car was due back at 1, we were at the airport much earlier than we needed to be (our flight was not until 3:50). So we just hung around the airport and entertained ourselves. We got some food at the café and split into 3 tables: one table played the card game Phase 10, my table played the card game Skip-Bo, and one table just hung out and talked.

Then, we boarded the plane and made our way back to Auckland. The next time I get on a plane it will be to go home! It’s crazy to think how fast these 4 months have gone by.

It was a really tiny plane, so we weren't flying that high and had some good views from the air. This is near Nelson, right after take off:

We also flew by Mt Taranaki, which is on the west coast of the North Island. (They call it the Mt Fuji of New Zealand.) It looked really cool because the top of the mountain was above the cloud line.

Final Trip - Day 4: Abel Tasman National Park

We got up early AGAIN (notice a theme on this trip??) so that we could leave by 7 to drive to Abel Tasman National Park. The hostel provided breakfast (toast and cereal) so we ate that before we left and brought packed lunches of PB&J’s, apples and muesli bars (granola bars). The drive only took an hour, which was less than we had expected, so we were there really early. Our boat wasn’t leaving for a while, so some of us took naps in the car while we waited.

We had booked a “cruise and walk” where we took a small water taxi ride for about an hour, they dropped us off in the national park and then we went on a hike to another bay where they picked us up later on in the day. We had 4 and ½ hours to do a 4 hour hike, but we did it in 3 hours and 35 minutes. In total, we hiked 13 km that day. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and we were just snapping pictures left and right. We were walking along the coast, from bay to bay, but had to climb up hills through the forest at times as well. The hike was actually more strenuous than I was expecting it to be – there were several uphill parts that were pretty steep and lasted for a little while. But everyone did it and we had fun.
The water was a beautiful blue green color and we had a gorgeous sunny day. It was actually a nice temperature out too, especially compared to the cold weather we had had the previous few days. I started out wearing leggings, jeans, a tank top, 2 long sleeve shirts, a short sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt and my Northface jacket (these are all of the layers I had been wearing for the past 2 days), but as we were walking, I began to peel layers off until I just had my tank top and 1 long sleeve shirt on.
We ate our packed lunches on the beach and it was just so pretty. Here's the beach we ate at, with Brian and Rich pretending to throw Dana into the water:I had heard about how beautiful Abel Tasman was (and that was one of the reasons why I really wanted to take this trip back to the South Island because we didn’t make it up there the first time) but seeing it in person was just incredible. One of the parts on the tramp (Kiwi for hike) through the woods crossed over a swing bridge! It was actually a pretty scary bridge because it was a long way down and there was a sign saying that a max of 5 people could be on the bridge at once. Don’t worry, we only lost one person though! (Just kidding!)
We made our way to Torrent Bay, where the boat came to pick us back up. There was a tree swing on the beach and we played on that for a little bit while waiting. Then, when we got back to the car, we went and played on a zipline (called Flying Fox here) before heading out. Two big themes of this trip were getting up before the sunrise and playing on playgrounds/ziplines/swingsets!

Here's Cate, Kim, Me and Kelly overlooking Torrent Bay:
Back at the hostel, I took a 40 minute nap and then got up to get the free soup from the hostel. It was homemade vegetable soup and was actually quite yummy! We ate our soup while watching Mission Impossible 3 on the TV in the common room. We made pasta for dinner and then played Monopoly after dinner. It was a nice relaxing night and we were all exhausted from the hike and from getting up early the past few days.

Final Trip - Day 3: Around Kaikoura

We woke up early again the next morning (6:20 AM) to bundle up to go whale watching. It was REALLY cold out and we each had about 6 layers of clothes on. I was one of the few people who had brought gloves with me and was very happy I did! We checked out of the hostel and drove to the whale watching place. When we got there, we were informed that the 7 AM tour was canceled due to rough seas. There were 3 more boats scheduled to go out that day (at 10, 10:30, and 12) but they didn’t know yet whether those boats would sail either. They told us to call or stop by 15 minutes before to find out. We all really wanted to do the whale watching, so we decided to try again for the 10 AM boat.
Since we were up anyway, we decided to watch the sunrise. It was a beautiful setting with the mountains and the water. Then, we went back to the hostel and we able to get back into our room to take “naps”/go back to bed for a little while. Our room was freezing, so we just got back into bed with all of our clothes and jackets on (a few people even slept in their shoes)! We slept until 9:30 and then headed into town so that we could stop at a store where people could buy gloves. On our way, the other car called the whale watching company and found out that all of the boats were canceled for the rest of the day. We were disappointed, since that was the main reason we had come to Kaikoura, but we went to the information center (iSite) to come up with an alternate plan.

Everyone except for Rich and James decided to go horseback riding at a local ranch outside of town.

Here's Kelly and I all geared up and ready to ride:

It was a gorgeous day for riding. Bright blue skies, crisp air, and we rode near the mountains which looked beautiful with snow on them. Since there were 9 of us, they split us up into two smaller groups, so we could all talk with the guide. My group’s guide was a very nice woman named Linda. She was really friendly and talkative. My horse’s name was “Star” and I had a great time riding her. Linda let us trot at a couple of points and it was a lot of fun. Everyone was bouncing around, but especially Kelly – her horse “Madam” must have just given a bouncier ride! She was laughing so hard every time we trotted and Linda thought it was very funny. We also got to ride along this stream and then we even crossed it. Our horses went up to their knees at one point!

After horseback riding, we drove back into town to meet up with Rich and James. We got lunch at a café and then walked around town for a bit.

Here's Brian and I down by the water:

We all drove to visit a seal colony that Rich and James found. The seals were up on the rocks and we could get pretty close to them. We had to be careful though, because they get angry if you come between them and the water. We got some good pictures though and it was really cool to be so close to the seals in their natural habitat.

Here's a video of one of the seals waddling along:

We started out on our drive to Nelson, but stopped along the way at Ohau Stream, where Linda told us that there are often baby seals that leave their mothers and come to play in the stream all day. It’s unusual that they come to play in fresh water, because normally they are out at sea. So on Linda’s advice, we stopped to check it out. It was only about a 10 minute walk (if that) to the stream. We were so lucky that we got to see if because there were SO many baby seals just playing around! They were not shy at all and just waddled right up to us. We were literally within inches of them and I think almost everyone got to touch one! I pet one and it was a lot softer than I was expecting – I guess they are called fur seals for a reason!

I was surprised that they were waddling up along the path and into the forest. When I think of seals, I imagine them in the water, not in the woods. It was interesting to see them so close up and so near us, but it was also really fun to watch them playing in the water. There was a waterfall and it was cool to see them playing in it, jumping around and doing flips. I felt like I was watching a seal show at Sea World or something, except I was really watching these baby seals out in the wild. We stayed for a little while, but it was late afternoon and we still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us.

The lighting in the forest was really poor, so it was hard to get good pictures, but here you can see what the baby seals look like:

The girls in the backseat fell asleep for most of the drive, but Rich was sitting up front with me and stayed awake to keep me company and help direct. I was very thankful for that because I was starting to get quite sleepy myself, especially once it got dark out. When we finally got to our hostel, we checked in and we were split up between 3 rooms. It wasn’t the cleanest of hostels, but at least each room had its own bathroom. I was in a room with Kelly, Dana, and Cate.

We headed into town to get dinner, and everyone just wanted to grab Burger King quickly. Kelly, Caitlin and I weren’t up for that, so we split off from the group and got dinner at a Thai restaurant. It wasn’t really very good Thai food, but still definitely better than Burger King. We picked up some stuff at the grocery store for lunches the next day and then headed back to the hostel. We just hung around and played card games and did card tricks!

Final Trip - Day 2: Ferry to South Island

We had to wake up at 6:30 so that we could get ready and check out of the hostel in time to catch the shuttle bus to the ferry. Unfortunately, our hostel told us the wrong time that we needed to be at the shuttle stop, so we wound up waiting for about a half hour that could have been extra sleep time. There were these 3 Asian men on the shuttle who were clearly tourists and they were wearing these funny hats. They said “New Zealand” and had sparkly sequins on them! We were all joking around and saying how we should all buy one and wear them back at Loyola.

At the ferry, we had to check our luggage as if we were going on a plane. The InterIslander ferry was very large – like a small cruise ship. There were 10 different levels. The bottom ones were for the cargo and the cars and the upper levels were for passengers.

We got breakfast at the café and then settled down in the “reclining lounge” where we took much needed naps. Here's Rich and Dana in the recliners:The ferry ride was about 3 hours. As we got closer and could see land, Dana and I went up to walk around the sundeck and take some photos.

The town of Picton, where the ferry came in to:

Once we got to Picton, we got our luggage off a conveyor belt (again, like at an airport). We went to the car rental office, but it the service was REALLY slow. There was only one woman working there, and there were two other people ahead of us in line. We waited for close to a half hour, and then when she finally got to us, we gave her all of our info. But at the last step, she messed something up in the computer so we had to start all over again giving our address, license number, etc. When we finally got the cars, we had 2 Toyotas: Brian drove the minivan and I drove the Camry. We were all really hungry and stopped at Subway for lunch on our way out of town.

My car made an obnoxious beeping noise if I drove over 110 kph (the speed limit was 100 kph), which was annoying but also good, because I made sure that I didn’t speed. (A couple of weeks ago, I got a speeding ticket in the mail from our first trip to the South Island. Apparently I was caught on a hidden camera going 11 kph over the speed limit. Don’t want another ticket!) It took a little over 2 hours to drive to Kaikoura. It was a pretty drive though, through the Marlborough Wine Region, and then along the coast. We stopped at one point to take some pictures of seals lounging on the rocks. It was really nice out at first, but as we continued on, it got cloudy and started to rain. It was kind of an eerie scene with the storm clouds, the fog, the rain, the mountains and the rough water.

We arrived at our hostel, “The Albatross,” and found out that we were all staying in one room that had a Turkish theme. Some of the beds had curtains and little cutouts to enter them. I stayed in the section of the room that was not Turkish themed, and I just had a regular bunk bed. Since it was nasty weather, we decided to take a trip to the grocery store, and just cook dinner and hang out at the hostel for the night. We split up into 2 dinner groups: the pasta group and the “fiesta” group. I was in on the fiesta and we made a delicious meal of chicken fajitas with peppers, onions, homemade guacamole, cheese, rice, chips and salsa. There were only 4 other people staying in the hostel that night, so we had the whole common area to ourselves. There was a woodburning stove and couches and we all sat around and watched the All-Blacks (the national rugby team) play their first test match of the season. This match was against Ireland and next weekend we are going to go see the All-Blacks play against England. I really enjoyed all of us sitting around watching the game together, especially since I got a better feel for rugby and can now enjoy next week’s game even more! It was a very fun and cozy night and went perfect with the weather. (It even snowed for a bit that night!)

Final Trip - Arrival and Day 1: Wellington

A group of 11 of us (Me, Kelly, Cate, Kim, her friend Desi, Rich, Dana, James, Brian, Steph and Caitlin) decided to take advantage of the time between classes and finals to go on one last trip. As I mentioned, we didn’t get to see the northern part of the South Island, so we decided to combine that with a visit to Wellington as a last hoorah. It really was a great trip and now you get to hear all about it!

We had a shuttle pick all of us up on Thursday afternoon. We were split up between 2 flights, but since they were within a half hour of each other, we went to the airport together. Once we landed in Wellington and got our luggage, we took a shuttle to our hostel and then headed out in search of food. We wound up getting pizza and then just hung out in the hostel for the night. There was a pool competition downstairs and we all entered it just for fun. It wasn’t like a normal game of pool, everyone took turns taking a shot and you had 3 strikes before being eliminated. It was tricky though, because in each round you had to shoot a specific way, like behind your back, with your opposite hand, or only holding the cue in one hand. The funniest one was spinning around 10 times before you had to shoot. I’m terrible at pool, but actually stayed in the competition pretty long because I make the crazy ones like the one-handed one and the spinning one! (I missed the plain old normal one though!)

The next morning we got up to go explore the city of Wellington. We were staying right in the city center and just walked to a café to get some breakfast. Then, we went to Te Papa (supposedly New Zealand’s best museum), where we spent a few hours exploring. It was a great museum and we all really enjoyed it. There were a lot of interactive exhibits which was cool.

Here's a video of us playing on this music thing. Basically you got to pick a song, and then each of the different circles controls a different part of the song (like a different voice or instrument). If you hold your hand over the circle it will light up and that part will play. So we all picked a different circle and were playing around with it!

For lunch, we went to Wholly Bagels, which was the first bagel I had in New Zealand. It was very yummy! We then took a walk along the water, which was a very pretty walk. We took a cool picture jumping off of these balls we found.

Then, we played on a playground for bit, where there was a really long slide.

And we went on the swings too, while we were at it!

We walked to the Beehive, which is the Executive Wing of the Parliament building. We took a tour of Parliament, which was pretty interesting to see inside. We saw the rooms where different councils and hearings are held. Our tour guide was an odd man, but it was still an interesting experience. After the tour, we went across the street to check out the pub where Members of Parliament supposedly frequent. We didn’t see anyone, but there were interesting statues including one of Helen Clarke, the Prime Minister.

Next, we walked to take a cable car ride up to the Botanical Gardens. Wellington is REALLY hilly, so this was a streetcar type cable car (not a gondola type) that was designed to eliminate what would otherwise be a very steep climb. We had a great view from the top and the sun was starting to set so it looked really pretty!We walked around the gardens for a little bit, but it was starting to get dark and we didn’t really have much time. So we decided to continue with what appeared to be the theme of the day and play on the playground. This was actually a very nice playground, with a zipline, double slides, a seesaw and a tire merry-go-round type thing. Apparently, we can be entertained quite easily!

We showered and got ready back at the hostel and then headed out to get some dinner. We went to Abrakebabra to get, of course, kebabs. I know I said that the one in Mt Eden was good, but this one was up there as well. We got gelato on the walk back which was delicious! (I got chocolate and cinnamon, and the cinnamon one was especially good.) Next, we went bowling! This was the classiest bowling alley I have ever seen. I didn’t bring my camera with me, but it was called a “bowling lounge” and had nice lanes, and a nice bar and some sit down tables. When you first walk in, you could be walking into a restaurant or a classy bar or something – you don’t even see the lanes at first. Bowling was fun and I even got one strike! Afterwards, we checked out a couple of the bars in town, but we had to be up really early the next day, so we didn’t stay out too late.

Since there were 11 of us traveling together, but the rooms at this hostel slept 6 people, my room had 5 of us and one empty bed – for the first night at least! When we got back on the second night, there was a 40-something year old man with a big hairy back sleeping in the bunk above Kim. A bit of an uncomfortable situation to say the least!

One Tree Hill and Mt Eden

Well I have a lot of catching up to do! We just got back from our trip this evening, but before I blog about that, I wanted to put up some pictures from a little day trip I took before we left for our trip.

I don't have class on Wednesdays, so last week I went with a few people to the neighborhood of Mt Eden and One Tree Hill. We took a bus there and then walked back. It was an 8 km walk home! The bus dropped us off at the base of One Tree Hill, which is an extinct volcanic cone. It got its name because there used to be a solitary pine tree at the top, but it is no longer there and now has the nickname of "None Tree Hill." There is an obelisk monument at the top of the hill, and we walked up to it. It was a nice walk up because it was such a beautiful day out and we enjoyed seeing all of the sheep playing on the hill. We had amazing views over the whole city because where we had to climb up to was pretty far up!

That's Rangitoto Island off in the distance. Another volcano in the Auckland Harbour. I'm hoping to do a day hike there before I leave.

You can see the Skytower in the way back (towards the right). That's pretty much where we had to walk back to!
I really enjoyed walking around the suburbs because it had such a different feel than center city, where we live. We were all getting pretty hungry and stopped to get kebabs before starting our walk back. The kebabs were very good - one of the best I've had, actually. The walk back was nice, and we went through the neighborhood of Mt Eden. It was getting late at this point, so we didn't really stop - just went through it. There were lots of really cute cafes, bakeries, and shops though, so I want to get back there to visit in the next couple of weeks.

It was a good day and well worth seeing what we did. Being out walking in the beautiful fall weather was much more enjoyable than spending my Wednesday off sitting in my room!