Once again sorry about the long time between posts! Internet access has either been spotty or expensive since the last time I updated.
After my last post, I headed down to Wellington quickly for one night before jumping across to the South Island, and down to the town of Nelson.
I want to live there!
Nelson is absolutely beautiful. The populations is about 5o,ooo so it's not too big but not too small. It's right on the ocean in a big bay, and has beautiful beaches and lots of green hills. The whole downtown area is very pleasantly designed with cobblestone streets, iron lampposts, and large wooden street signs. There is a beautiful park in the middle of the town, on a hill, with a gorgeous cathedral, and the whole city is decorated with greenery and flowers. Even the hostel I stayed at was immaculate! I felt instantly relaxed and at peace as soon as I arrived, and could easily imagine living there! Except it's in New Zealand... so I doubt it.
Anyway, my love of the city aside, I had a great stay there. I stayed for five days, and after a day to rest after all that travelling, I ended up doing a lot of activities. The second day I took a bus up north to the Abel Tasman National Park, and took a boat out to the sea lion colony, then to shore where I did a walk through the park. Then the boat picked me up at the other end of the walk, and back to town for the bus back to Nelson. It was a bit of a hectic day because through a computer mix up the bus didn't pick me up in the morning, so I had to catch a different later one, then catch a later boat out, and it was all messed up. Because of that they gave me the bus rides for free which was nice. But the walk through the park was great. Beautiful forests and lovely beach and ocean views. It rained for about 25 minutes during the hike, but I was wearing my swimsuit under my clothes so I could go swimming at the beaches, so I didn't really care. The sea lion colony was a bit of a disappointment though because there was only 3 or 4 of them.
The next day I borrowed a bike from the hostel and rode out to the World of Wearable Art and Classic Car Museum. An interesting combination, but they were both really neat exhibits. You can find the website for the wearable art section
here since they didn't permit photography in the exhibit to protect the artists freedom of creativity. So, it's not really clothing that is supposed to be worn for fashion, but rather using the human body as a medium for art. Some of the pieces were amazingly beautiful, some were disturbing, and some were downright weird. If you take a minute to look through the website you'll see what I mean. But it was definitely a neat museum. I wish I could go to one of the shows now as they look like a lot of fun. The classic cars section was pretty neat too, as they had a model of the first ever car, as well as an authentic Model T, and a brand new Porsche and Ferrari. They had a few pieces of the wearable art collection in there that you could take pictures of, so here's one to show you.
Neat huh? And here's the Model T:
After I finished there, I rode my bike back into town and out to the start of a local hike, that actually takes you to the geographical center of New Zealand. It was a pretty short hike, and it gave excellent views of the town of Nelson. It's kind of neat to know I sat and ate lunch at the center of a country too!
The next day I went back up towards the National Park and went on a sea kayak trip. It was a lot harder than the river one! No gently drifting downstream on this trip - there was a lot of paddling and fighting the wind and the waves. But it was a lot of fun, and we saw some great sights. It was a small group of us, just the guide, me and a family of three. They had a young boy with them, only about 4, and he was in a kayak with his dad and given a little half paddle. He was so cute, and never gave up paddling for the whole trip! Most kids would probably get bored or tired after about 10 minutes, but he sat there and paddled his heart out for the whole trip. Cute. We went out to a local landmark called Split Apple Rock, and here you can see why it's called that!
After the kayak trip I just chilled out on the beach for the afternoon until my bus back into Nelson. While I was there, I found a little seagull that I took a liking to and named Peggy - she only had one foot! Must have been attacked when it was younger or something, but it managed to survive! It still had a stub, and it would use it as a pivot, but mostly just balanced on the one foot. Funny to watch really.
The next day I reluctantly left Nelson, and headed out to the East coast of the south island to a little town called Kaikoura. The reason I wanted to stop there is because it's a very special place in regards to sea life. There are pods of Dusky dolphins and Sperm whales that live off the coast year round, and during the right seasons you can even see humpback and orca whales too. So I went there hoping to do some whale watching and dolphin swimming. Turns out they were really expensive so I could only afford to do one. As disappointed as I was that I couldn't do both, I chose to do the dolphin swimming since with that you actually get to be up close and interact with them, as opposed to watching from 50m away like with the whales.
It was absolutely fabulous. The boat took us out to the pod of dolphins and positioned us right in their path. We got in the water and were immediately amongst hundreds of dolphins. It was so humbling and breathtaking to see these wild creatures in their natural habitat, and to be a part of it and have them interacting with me. I saw a few babies, and even had one particular dolphin that stayed with me for about 3 minutes just circling me and then darting away and coming back to play with me more. We weren't allowed to touch them sadly as that scares them off, but they come close enough that you could if you tried. I took my underwater camera with me and I can't wait to develop the pictures to see if I got any good ones. It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity that I'll always remember.
We got to swim with them for about 5 minutes, 5 times I think. I can't remember how many times we did it because I was having so much fun. But after we were done we followed the pod in the boat so that we could get pictures of them riding the waves of the boat and jumping and flipping in the air. Then they took us out to a fur seal colony and got us up right close to them from the boat. Here are some pictures of the dolphins and seals.
I only spent about 2 days in Kaikoura, since there wasn't much to do there other than the sea life stuff, but I did manage to find out about a guided night sky tour. It was about an hour and a half long and they taught us all about the southern night sky, and the constellations that they have. They showed us how to find south using the Southern Cross constellation, and showed us the Magellinic clouds, which are actually two other galaxies that are visible to the naked eye down here. We saw Jupiter through a telescope, and looked at the nebula on Orion's sword through the telescope as well. Yes, Orion is visible down here sometimes, but he's upside down, as are all the star sign constellations. We also got to look at the moon through the telescope, and it was only half full, but the detail on it was incredible! You could see tiny craters and ridges very clearly, and even take a picture of it through the telescope! The guide did that for us and is supposed to be emailing the pictures to us soon. It was a perfectly clear night and great conditions for looking at the stars, and I really enjoyed the tour.
I did a little bit of hiking around the penninsula, and out to the fur seal colony that is on shore as well. There was only one seal up on the shore which was a bit disappointing but he was quite tolerant and allowed us to get quite close so I got some good pictures of him. And the coastline of the penninsula was gorgeous and I got some great shots of that as well.
On Sunday I left Kaikoura and headed further south to where I am now, Christchurch. It's a much bigger city, over 3oo,ooo people. Here I have actually met up with a friend of mine that I have been talking to online for quite some time now. Her name is Gwennie and I'm staying with her at her place, which is a really nice break from staying in hostels. I have my own room! Heaven! It's really neat to meet her too since it already feels like we know each other, and we get along great. Today we (her, me, and her boyfriend Ben) went out to the Wildlife Park, and got to feed the giraffes, and I got to see some live kiwis! They had lions and tigers too (but no bears! harhar) But mostly I've just been relaxing and enjoying some peaceful downtime. It's a lot of fun and really exciting to be doing everything that I am, but constantly travelling and living out of a backpack can get pretty exhausting, so it's definitely a much needed rest.
Once again I hope that you all are well, and I miss everyone a lot! Thanks for all the comments you've all been leaving, it's really nice to have notes from home waiting for me when I can get to a computer. :)
Take care!
