Friday June 6: Twas a normal day at work, wanted the day to go speedily to meet up with Jennie afterwards to welcome her to Wellington. Was getting a bit of a cold so decided to get a smoothie at lunch for a vitamin boost, never been to said smoothie place before and when i got there lo and behold Jennie's the person in front of me!!! How bizarre?! O.M.G moment. :-D
The next day we visited Te Papa, national museum all about NZ. Pretty impressive is it too. We caught a show by some AMAZIN Maori dancers down from Auckland, they were so awesome, combining traditional Maori dance with modern stuff. Then in the afternoon we saw Cats - cute, I'd forgotten many of the songs. It was good but, truthfully, not a patch on the show at the museum.
Sunday: We went to Wellington Zoo! It was coool! Really nicely laid out, the animals had plenty of space. My joint favourites were the Red Pandas - gorgeous, and the Malayan sun bear, he was very lovely too. The baboon leader took a dislike to us and scared us off very effectively, hehe, think the other zoo-goers thought we were a bit silly for screaming and running away but he properly didn't like us!! Never look them in the eyes!!! After that we went to see the Sex and the City Movie in the cinema gold lounge, which involves big reclining armchairs, an uninterrupted view, and someone bringing cocktails to you - utter perfection! I naturally had a cosmopolitan, the best I've ever had. We'd bought some lamb from my free-range butcher and had a yummy roast dinner and watched Thelma and Louise for the first time.
Monday: after a slight panic that we were going to miss the ferry thanks to the unfortunate positioning of the car rental place across two lanes of never ending rush-hour traffic, we happily made it. I opted to stay out on deck the whole time due to my lately developed seasickness on apparently any size of vessel (more of that later). Plenty to see on deck though, lovely views and some cows and sheep being transported to keep me entertained. When we disembarked we passed the cow trucks and much to our surprise and amusement a dog stuck it's head out from between the wheels! I've recently learned that that's where they put the 'dog box'...apparently dogs herd cows too - who knew?!
So, we'd arrived in Picton, we picked up the car, parked to have a look round town and found tourist info. who told us that a Marlborough Sounds boat trip - the actual mail delivery service - was leaving soon so we grabbed a Subway and hopped on. It was very very pretty but got a bit samey after 3 hours (we were on it for around 5) and resorted to playing the Who am I game which I suck at!! I don't know how people live on such remote islands, if there were a storm they'd be totally cut off - not my cup of tea at all, but beautiful of course. We got to stop for a bit on Captain Cook's island, where he landed down south for the first time supposedly. We'd have liked to have spent longer there and walked to a waterfall, but the mail had to be delivered! The flora was gorgeous, all sorts of exotic plants, more like a Pacific island than oft Anglicized NZ.
Back in Picton we found an absolute gem of a hostel thanks to the LP, The Villa, so nice. We opted for a private twin room rather than a dorm cos of our colds, really nice room, comfy, tele, ensuite. The hostel really stood out cos they have free apple crumble every night!!! How awesome is that?! And free hot water bottles, and a hot tub with rubber duckies. Sweeet. On our first night we went for a glass of local plonk at the Scottish pub The Flying Haggis (not a patch on the Welsh Dragon of course, but ace all the same). We slightly misjudged the meaning of 'open til late' in all the restaurants...apparently 'late' is 7pm...alrighty then! So we ate at the haggis too, yummy fish and chips.
Tuesday: Took a stroll round Picton and found a choice spot for luncheon. Felt obliged to have some famous NZ mussels - really good, mmmm. In the afternoon we went on a wine tour which was fun. Along with wine, we stopped at a place which had chocolate (i was underwhelmed) and another which had liquors, yummm, and some amazing dipping oils. My favourite wine was there too, it was an unusual one, a pinot blanc, very delicious. Back at the hostel Jen taught me to cook spag bol, hopefully i can now do so on my own without poisoning myself, hehe. And we partook of the free crumble and watched the Amazing Race, perfection.
Wednesday: We drove from Picton down the east coast to Kaikoura where we'd booked to go sea kayaking with some seals (er, you know what i mean!). We got there in time for lunch beforehand. A little unwisely we had a seafood chowder...true, it was very tasty and just what's needed on a chilly winter's day, but right before going on the sea, perhaps not the best. Not 20 minutes into the 2 hour kayak i was feeling abysmally seasick. Funnily enough it hadn't even occurred to me that one could get seasick on an open kayak - i never have before, why now?!? Grrr. I reckon it was mainly because the guide, though full of interesting factoids, kept stopping for aaaages, so we were just sitting there being buffeted up and down, up and down...yah. The redeeming moment though was a baby seal rocking up and playing alongside the kayak, that did make it all worth it, just about - it was a close run thing. After sitting and looking at a damned massive albatross for a stupidly long time we had to head back to shore early - felt bad for the other two people on the tour who seemed to be feeling fine, but there really was no choice, we were both utterly miserable & feeling awful. Lesson learned though, if i ever go on the Amazing Race i'll know to avoid sea-based tasks!! On a tip from the kayak guide we drove up to a lookout point to see the views of the snow-capped mountains and sea. Popped into a fudge factory to try some samples and bought some for the next car journey. Our hostel for that night was Dusky Lodge, since we still felt rough we relaxed in the evening, read by the fire, and cooked a scrummy dinner of steak and lamb.
Thursday: In the morning we headed for Hanmer Springs, a hot springs and skiing resort town. The drive was beautiful, there was even some snow on the side of the road, and the mountains were so so pretty. It was freezing outside so we had a mad dash to get changed into our bikinis and into the thermal hot springs. The setting was beautiful, with the mountains around and the snow (are ya getting that i dig snowy mountains!)...it was gooood, really relaxing. Not so much a fan of the sulphur pools though, stinky! Had a yummy lunch afterwards then went for a game of mini golf! Also went in an Indiana Jones themed maze, you have to go round and collect clues and solve a riddle thing and if you do ya get some gold coins, fun! It was great! I reckon Jen won the mini golf but on the last hole she lost the ball in a tree, so technically....hehe.
We got to Christchurch just before dark and found a hostel to stay at. It had underfloor heating so we were happy! Since we were going out the following night we decided to go to the cinema and see 21, v.v.good. And after we came over all retro and played in an arcade! Hehehe, we 'won' i.e. gathered enough tokens for, a Little Miss Naughty, who was henceforth our belated mascot.
Friday: We were on a mission. A penguin mission. Jennie'd never seen penguins in the wild and there were penguins in Akaroa - a coastal former French colony which my workmate had recommended I visit as it's very pretty. So with prettiness and penguins combined we had to go. The 'state highway' (= narrow one-lane road) was precarious with tight twisty corners and sheer unprotected drops but it was worth it once we reached the top of one hill and could look down over Akaroa and the harbour, very pretty indeed. We sought out the tourist info office to find out where the penguins were and discovered, much to our chagrin, that the penguins had vacated their usual spot and had gone swanning off for a spot of fishing - bugger. So we made the decision not to gamble on the off-chance of seeing them on a harbour cruise and opted instead to wander the town, have lunch, then head back to Christchurch to see them for sure in the Antarctic Centre. Was a good plan, the town was very cute, we bought yet more fudge, and the Antarctic Centre was fun! Both educational and entertaining, as these things should be. We went in simulated Antarctic conditions, starting at -8C then there was a storm which brought it down to -18C!!! Of course the centre provided us with over shoes and incredible wind proof jackets, and we had gloves and scarves with us, so the only bits of me that were cold were my legs, covered just in jeans. It was exciting and gave us an idea of what it must be like anyway. That evening we met up with Amy, who we hadn't seen in years, since school really, and her friend Maddy for drinks at Coyote. It was lovely to see her again, fun! I'll definitely go skiing where she works, can't wait!
Sadly that was that, on Saturday I flew back to Wellington and Jennie to Auckland then back home.
Following in the tradition started in Vietnam, here follows our ABC game:
I went to New Zealand and I...
Ate roast lamb
Bought a kiwi
Climbed a mountain
Delivered mail
Earthquakes I foresaw
Froze in the Antarctic
Golfed - mini style
Hired a Nissan Sunny
Injured my feet
Jollied around the hillocks
Kayaked with seals
Loved the Villa
Met up with old friends
Never minded the penguin exodus
Overindulged on fudge
Played old-school arcade games
Quitted sea kayaking
Red pandas I adored
Swam in hot springs
Tasted many a fine wine
Utopia I found
Vino I sampled!
Wine I tasted!!
Xylophones I did not see
Yearned for central heating
Zoos I experienced
