1.OCTOBER.2007

Under much needed yelling on my part and the quick trip to the internet café to book our ferry and make a few SOS calls home for money, we explored a little of Christchurch. Which I’m still a little pissy we didn’t say for at least another day or so.
Started out at Cathedral Square and to our luck were unable to actually go into the cathedral due to a funeral service. Christchurch has some great architecture and a lovely botanical garden that has some amazing trees and a pretty fountain that greets you on your walk in. I ended the day perusing the Christchurch Art Gallery where my perusing literally was spent looking through the scads and scads of black and white photographs in the Handboek exhibit by Ans Westra; another New Zealand great.

We then drove to Kaikoura. A place I want to announce as, if I were to live anywhere in New Zealand this would be the place. Arrived just before dusk and were amazed at the picturesque setting (see photos). Drove over to the seal colony and saw the beautiful sunset over the snow-capped mountains. But the best part was seeing the seals up close and personal. A long over due life long dream you should all know since childhood. They’re just so cute and fat and one was rolling all over the place. Saw a couple babies too hiding in the bushes and pretty sure we got to close cause it growled at us. After I was pried away from the seals we got back in our smelly van and drove as far as we could for the night.















About 90% of all bridges in New Zealand are like this..:

30.SEPTEMBER.2007

More talk about driving, left Dunedin and drove on to Hampden. Where we were told we could get some amazing fish n’ chips. Big Ev’s was nationally rated for the chips but I will say the blue cod I got was quite delicious.

Drove to Akaroa, which is a little French town and a definite driving task just to get there. Up hill, down hill, 10 mph curves. So unfortunately by the time we arrived everything was pretty much closed. Jessica had been dieing to go but we probably should of planned the trip better considering it was Sunday and slowly approaching 6 pm. Plus at this point no one even cared to get out and explore. I guess I should clarify that everyone with Duga and Jeremiah, who just wanted to go back to Auckland at this point. SO ANNOYING! So thus we drove on to Christchurch and tracked down a campground to stay at. And I will make it a point to say that Jessica and I slept in the tent just to prove the boys wrong that we’d actually live up to our word.

29.SEPTEMBER.2007

What could have been picturesque was missed partly because it was 6am and also I hadn’t realized the path to the lighthouse was right by our van and not up the gravel path which LED TO NO WHERE. A bit disappointing but once I found the path to the Nugget Point lighthouse we managed to take in the windy views as the sun rose. Plus on the walk back to the van I saw some baby seals playing at the bottom of the cliff. How sweet there cute little barking sounds are in the morning.

Drove on to Dunedin and found a laundry matte pronto so we wouldn’t be smelly kids that live in a van. Went out to Otago Peninsula, which is home to the great Albatross bird (one of the largest birds in the world with a wing span of around 3 meters) and one of the only Albatross Colonies found on an inhabited mainland. Too bad you had to pay to get a tour just to see the dang birds. Way to rip off the tourists. Us being the cheap Americans we are, we aimed to walk around the cliff path and see some native birds for free.

After that non-existent bird fun we scurried over to the Speight’s Brewery for a much needed tour. Had some time before the tour, so I ran over to catch the Laurence Aberhart show at the Dunedin Art Gallery. I was stupidly excited to finally see it, considering I had missed it when our photography class was told the wrong dates for the show in Wellington. But luck will have had it; I got to see some amazing black and white photographs from New Zealand’s own.
As for the beer fest tour, a 90-minute long tour that included a lovely go round by a hilarious Irish lad and some obvious beer tasting at the end. Jeremiah ended up making friends with two guys from Syracuse University during the tour. We were all sitting in our van outside the brewery with the intention of possibly meeting up with the two guys later. Twenty minutes or so pass and they come back and say, “Hey we found a place for you to park your van tonight.” They were in the same boat as us and weren’t sure where we would stay for the night, and us all being cheap, we were desperate. They had driven down to the college part of town and asked some people outside a house that responded with, “OH well you can just park it right out front in our driveway.” That said, we drove our van over to the house and bonded with the local college kids. A good night that ended in Jessica, Duga, and I having a food fest and falling asleep to Nacho Libre for the tenth time.










Mr. Speights himself..well as a wax person..

28.SEPTEMBER.2007

Woke up to baby lambs and got slobbered by the baby calf’s. Plus we got an extra special treat in the morning because one of the sheep gave birth!

Drove to Curio Bay/Porpoise Bay where I got to see my first wild penguin hanging out on a rock. A beautiful beach, as usual, and the waves crashing against the rocks looked like a movie scene. We also went to see a petrified forest that looked just like rocks on the shore, but was much greater then that up close (see photos).

We also wanted to go to Slope point, which is the southern most point of the south island, but because it is sheep shearing season the road was closed. Dang sheep ruining everything. SHEEP SHEEP SHEEP never seen so many in my entire life!

Decided it was late enough and drove back to Invercargill to meet the guys. They were grumpy and all they wanted was to sit in the van, so Jessica and I wondered over to what ended up being the lamest carnival on earth. Not even kidding! Got haggled out of $10 buck to some damn dart game. And all for a rooster and a blow up seal (which I managed to do a trade a few booths down just to get). Woo, but the highlight was probably the cotton candy I bought. Entire time spent at the carnival: 10 minutes.
After all this excitement we decided to hit the open road again and drive the scenic coast root up to Kaimataitai, where we slept on the side of the road so we could wake up and go to Nugget Point at sunrise.