Wellington 7s

We made it safe and sound to the North Island on Thursday, February 6 and we were super excited for the weekend we had in store.

We are lucky enough to know a few people in Wellington so we had a chance to sleep in a real bed, inside a house for a couple of nights (sorry Wanda). Our friend from undergrad, Gina, lives and works as a physio in Wellington and she was nice enough to invite us to stay with her for the weekend and tag along to all the festivities with her. It was so nice to see a familiar face in New Zealand when we got to her place!

Thursday night was a lot of chatting, catching up and meeting Gina's boyfriend, Danny. Gina made us dinner, then took us on a tour of the city. Since it was a nice night we went up Mount Victoria to get a view of Wellington. It was so neat. We made it just in time for sunset and we got to see all of Wellington from a perfect perspective - a 360 degree view of the city. After sunset we got some gelato and walked around the water front. We capped off the night with a beer at a crazy bar that has over 101 different beers to choose from. My chocolate stout was awesome!

Friday was such a crazy day. It started out with playing barbershop. We spent over an hour helping Dave cut off his beard and all of his hair! It was so weird to see him all clean shaven and cut short again. And it was even crazier to see how much hair actually came off his head!

 

After Dave was all prettied up we made our way over to one of Gina's friends houses to get all dressed up and ready for the rugby 7's tournament. Apparently it is tradition that everyone going to the tournament dresses up in costume for the whole weekend. People go all out on these costumes and there are even prizes for the best ones. Gina's friend Nick planned a costume for about 12 of us - we were all wearing berets, stripped shirts and a handkerchief, but with Kiss makeup...can you figure it out...we were French Kiss. So clever! I was a little lame and bailed on the face full of make-up because I wanted to represent Canada a little bit. My mom sent me with these hilarious Canada flag sunglasses so I wore those and instead of being French Kiss, I was French Canadian.

After a BBQ, some drinks and, of course, the costume prep, we started to make our way to the stadium. EVERYONE was dressed up! It was wild. Everywhere you looked there were the Super Mario Brothers, or a SWAT team or Batman, Robin, etc. It was hilarious! Everyone slowly makes their way to the stadium via all the bars and restaurants along the water front - apparently, the actual rugby games aren't the main entertainment for the weekend. We did eventually make our way to the stadium and we got to see some pretty amazing rugby. Canada killed it on day 1 and won their pool 3-0. The games went until almost 11pm so we pretty much just made our way home after that because we had another day full of drinking ahead of us tomorrow.

Saturday is definitely the more popular day to go to the 7's so we were up early and getting dressed back in our costumes, having another BBQ and more drinks again. Unfortunately, Canada had a terrible draw for the quarter finals and had to play New Zealand...boo, we lost :( But, New Zealand did go on to win the whole tournament and Canada definitely made them work for it, so as far as we're concerned, Canada came second :)

I have never seen something as crazy as the stadium on Saturday night. It was packed full of people, all dressed in costumes, all wasted singing and dancing and cheering for New Zealand. It was a pretty awesome experience! And we got to see a Haka, which was cool too!

 

After the tourney was over we made our way to the bars. We hit up a few and did our own little bar crawl before finishing at a bar called Chicago, which had this huge outdoor dance floor set up. Seriously, there were thousands of people there (still all in costume) busting a move. It was awesome. I think this place was Dave's highlight of the night because he met a Cook Islander named Dwayne, who was maybe one of the largest men I have ever seen. He was jacked and strong and he had rhythm!!!

Sadly, we are getting old so we had to go home after Chicago. We walked home via this massive street party on Courtenay Place. They shut down the whole street and everyone just goes to different bars. It was so busy and so hilarious to see.

Needless to say we were a little slow moving on Sunday. It took us about 5 hours to do anything productive. But we did manage to do some laundry and go to the gym. We spent the rest of the night just being lazy, eating dinner and watching the Olympics - GO CANADA GO!

From here, we were not too sure what our plans would be. We did want to see some family friends in Wellington, but because of poor timing we could not meet up this go around and ended up leaving and driving north to check out some sights. We knew we would be back around a week or so, so for now it was time to explore again. Life on the open road :)

Thanks for reading

xoxoxo

Our Last Few Days in the South Island

After Able Tasman we had planned to make our way over to Blenheim and the Marlborough region and a well known wine area in the south island, then to Kaikoura and finally finish off in Picton before our ferry to the north island.

The Marlborough region was amazing! We stayed at a little hostel in Renwick for the night so that we could rent some bikes and go on a wine tour without having to worry about driving. What a great idea that was! We spent about 5 hours on the bikes and made it to 6 wineries and I can tell you that we were not riding in a straight line on our way back to the hostel. All of the wines were awesome, but the region is definitely known for its sauvignon blancs, which were delicious. Dave continues to like chardonnays, but really I just think he likes almost any wine that has been aged in some oak.

A view from the side of the road

 

The next day was one of the most beautiful days we have had weather wise so we decided to visit one more winery on our way out of Blenheim because it has a tower on the property that you can climb and get 360 degree views of the wine region - all the grapes and the mountains and the clear blue skies...it was gorgeous (and the wine tasting there wasn't bad either :)

From Blenheim we made our way down the east coast to Kaikoura. This is what I had been looking forward to most on our New Zealand adventure so I was pretty excited that we were finally making our way there. Dave was also looking forward to this part of the trip, mainly because it was Super Bowl Monday here and we stopped off at a local bar to have a few beers and catch the Seahawks demolish the Broncos. Not the best game but it was well worth the stop. We spent the rest of the day in Kaikoura, checking out the town and checking in for our dolphin swim for the next morning. Then we drove a little north of town and stayed at a free campsite for the night. The sky was so clear and the stars were amazing, but we had to go to bed relatively early because the dolphin swim was booked for 5:30 am the next morning.

Right off the edge of the boat

Totally worth the early morning wake up! We were on the boat heading out to the ocean and the wild pods of dusky dolphins just in

time for sunrise. Right after the sun had completely risen, we saw our first pod of dolphins, and in we went to the water. It was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done in my entire life. There were 16 of us in the ocean swimming around with hundreds of dolphins and they actually interact with you. If you sing under water and swim in circles and dive down it attracts the dolphins to you and they actually come over and take a look. If you get their attention enough, they swim around with you for a little bit until you bore them again. It was so cool! We got so close to so many dolphins! We did 4 dives in total before heading back onto the boat to change and have some hot chocolate. While we were on the boat we got to hang out and watch over 200 dolphins playing around with each other. They were jumping and flipping and twisting. They were swimming with the boat and racing the boat. There were even seals and albatross joining in on the fun. It was such a cool morning! Definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far for me!

The rest of the day we spent napping pretty much, hahaha. We did go to a seal colony just south of Kaikoura and saw a sheep shearing show before saying goodbye to the area and driving back north.

We spent our last day on the south island in Picton. We went to the gym, drove a bit of the Queen Charlotte Scenic Drive, walked around town and enjoyed the sunny weather.

Sadly, our time on the south island had come to an end. We were definitely excited to get to Wellington and the North Island for the rugby 7's tournament, but we didn't want to leave the south island. It was so beautiful and amazing to explore - 5 weeks just wasn't enough time! Oh well, I guess that means that we'll just have to come back... :)

Off to more adventures in the north island!

xoxo

Able Tasman

That sure did live up to its hype! The Able Tasman is so beautiful, and best of all, we got great weather pretty much the whole time! The company we booked the kayaks through had another couple doing the exact same trip as us - a young couple from California (Julia and Richard), who are also doing a year of travelling. We spent most of the trip with them and had a blast.

We started off on Friday, January 29 in Motueka and drove to the launch site in Marahau. After a quick kayak lesson from a guide, we were ready to go. We started by taking a bit of a detour from Marahau to the split apple rock at Kaiteriteri beach. It is a huge rock in the water that looks like a split apple. It was pretty neat.

Split Apple rock

From there we made our way up the coast to our first stop for the night at Anchorage Beach. Most of the kayaking was pretty neat - nicely sheltered and calm, with seals and birds along the way. We stopped for lunch on a little beach that only had 2 other people on it. The sand was pretty and white and the water was clear and blue, so of course, Dave swam! After lunch we unfortunately had to tackle the "mad mile" of kayaking. This is one of the main areas of the kayak that isn't sheltered, so it is much more rough and choppy. IT WAS TERRIFYING! I thought I was going to die (of course I was over reacting, but I was scared!). The waves were big and coming from all different directions. If Dave wasn't in the kayak with me I think I would have had a panic attack. Thankfully we made it safe and sound to Anchorage Bay and I will never do much open, rough water kayaking again in my life!

We made it to Anchorage pretty early in the day so we spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach with Julia and Richard. It was great because Dave had someone to play with and Julia and I just suntanned and chatted. We finished the day off with dinner and a camp fire with a few other people from the camp site. It was pretty neat to sit around with 10-15 different people and compare travel stories and find out neat places to go and see.

Day 2 started out nice and relaxing and while we were loading our kayak one of the coolest things of the trip happened. I was looking out into the water and saw this dark shadow skim across the bottom. It took me a minute to figure out what it was but there were 4-5 stingrays in the water just swimming around. It was so cool to see them in the wild just playing with each other and hiding in the sand on the bottom.

Can you see the stingrays?

Luck was on our side and high tide was around 10am so we left Anchorage at 9am to make our way up a river to this neat place our guide told us about called Cleopatra's pool. Everyone who was hiking the trail walks right by it, but you can only reach it by kayak at high tide. It is a pretty neat little rocky area in the river that has a natural, mother nature made water slide. We were able to tie up our kayaks and go for a little walk to the area and actually slide down this water slide. It was a little painful because not all of the rocks were totally smooth, but still really cool to try!

The waterslide

 

From Cleopatra's pool we made our way back onto the open water and up towards our kayak drop off point at Onetahuti Bay. We saw tons more seals and a few neat rock formations on our way there. We spent a couple of hours at Onetahuti and had some lunch and a swim. Once we dropped our kayaks off we had to do an hour hike to Awaroa to make it past a tidal crossing at low tide. We were making such good time that we decided to stop off at the Awaroa lodge for a nice cold beer. It was such a nice treat after kayaking and hiking to sit down with an icy beer and relax for half an hour. We successfully made our tidal crossing and made it to our campsite for that night at Waiherakeke Beach. The tidal crossing was pretty interesting though - most people walked around the bay to the smallest part and crossed there, but we were all getting pretty tired and didn't want to have to walk any more than necessary so we just walked straight across and got so much water and sand in our shoes! None of our shoes were dry by the next morning even with a fire!

We taught Richard and Julia how to play Euchre, had some dinner, another fire and then hit the hay because the sandflies and mozzies were terrible. They were so bad that I woke up in the middle of the night with a huge fat lower lip. I think I must have been bitten in my sleep in one or two spots because my lips were huge and I always swell up and react badly to these bites. It took almost 2 days for the swelling to go down and in the meantime I had Angelina Jolie lips!!

Our last day was supposed to be a nice relaxing hour long hike before our water taxi pick up at 3pm. unfortunately, when Richard and Julia woke up they realized they couldn't find their camera. They spent a couple of hours retracing their steps and going through their bags over and over, but no luck. Julia was pretty bummed for the rest of the day. The last part of the hike was good but we were happy to get it over with so we could just relax on the Totaranui beach and read. Our water taxi came to get us at 3pm and took us back to our cars. The water was pretty rough on the way back but otherwise
the trip was pretty cool. We got to see more stingray and seals and we even saw a few blue penguins swimming in the water - they are sooo fast!

Able Tasman was awesome and we were lucky enough to get more great weather. Except for some wind and bugs, it was great. After we got back to our cars and had some dinner and followed Richard and Julia back to a camp ground and had some drinks and snacks with them around another fire. They were such a nice couple, we hope we'll cross paths with them again in our travels because they are also going to the north island and then to Australia and SE Asia. So, we'll see...

Thanks for Reading

xoxoxo

West Side

One of the best things about a multi-day trek is the meal you can justify eating once you get back to civilization. From Glenorchy we hopped in Wanda and made our way back to Wanaka for the night. We did some laundry and then went out for a dinner at a local restaurant that serves local beer. We pretty much ate our faces off and got drunk pretty easy. But it was delicious and well deserved if I do say so myself!

From Wanaka we spent the next few days making our way up the west coast of the south island. We didn't have to be in Nelson/ Able Tasman for almost a week, which gave us a lot of time to meander our way through the cute little towns and stop at all the attractions that we wanted to.

Our first day we did quite a bit of driving, but of course, we stopped along the way. The weather wasn't that nice though, so we didn't feel that bad spending most of the day in the car. We stopped at a few waterfalls; Roaring Billy and Thunder Creek. We also stopped by a few little towns; Haast and Makarora. We spent that night at a DOC site in Lake Paringa. Again, we spent most of that night in the car because of the weather and the sandflies...we still hate sandflies!

The next day the weather wasn't that much better but we still managed to see some cool stuff. It was 'glacier day'. There are two glaciers in the Southern Alps of the south island that pretty much enter the neighbouring towns. Glacier hikes are big business here, but we were too cheap to do one so we just walked to the bases of both glaciers and did some other short hikes around them to check out the area. The first one we saw was Fox Glacier and the second one was Franz Josef Glacier. They were both pretty cool and it was neat to see how much they have receded over the past few years. Since the weather wasn't that great we decided to spend the late afternoon at the glacial hot pools in Franz Josef. There were 3 large pools of different temperatures and we just spent a few hours being lazy and enjoying the warmth after a cool, rainy day. It was awesome.

The weather finally turned by the next morning so we back tracked a little to Fox Glacier. There are a few great vista points in the area where you can get good views of the alps on clear days, and since the previous day was cloudy and rainy, we retraced our steps a little. It was totally worth it. We started off at Lake Matheson, which is situated at the most perfect spot where you can get a photo of the alps reflecting in the water on the lake. Then we made our way over to another area where you got a great panoramic view of the alps. The clouds started to roll in at that point so we didn't get the best photos but we did enjoy our morning tea/coffee in the sunshine with a pretty nice view.

The view from Lake Matheson

 

After our morning back in Fox Glacier we continued our trip up the west coast and stumbled into the cutest little beachside town called Hokitika. Hokitika is mostly known for it's rich supply of local pounamu or jade. The area is so rich in it that every other store in the town seems to be selling it in one way or another. But we were also in luck because the sun was shining, and there was the "Drift Wood and Sand" festival happening all week in Hoki. One part of the festival is people building sculptures on the beach with driftwood from the ocean. There were some pretty elaborate ones - it was impressive. We spent a little time wandering the beach and checking out the sculptures and the rest of the town. One of the best things we saw was a pizza restaurant called Fat Pipi's. The name was just hilarious! We then made our way to the Hokitika gorge. This place was beautiful!. It had this amazing colour of blue water, which was gorgeous and there weren't many people there so it was nice and quiet and peaceful. And there was a swing bridge, which was kind of fun too! We finished the day off watching the sunset on the beach with a bottle of wine.

We spent the night at a DOC site at an old mining town just outside of Hokitika, called Goldsborough, then made our way back to Hokitika the next morning. We started our day off at the local gym, which had great hot showers, then we checked out a local market, and more of the Drift Wood and Sand festival. Todays festivities included people dressed in costume, golfing on the beach and getting wasted. Unfortunately our time was up in Hokitika and we kept on moving up the west coast but we really liked the cute little town.

The following day, we were excited about what was in store for us, as we were going to make it to Punakaiki, which is a little area of the coast where the rock has formed in a way that it looks like layers and layers of pancakes. So, of course, they have been named the 'Pancake Rocks'. It is so interesting how the rock has formed this way and apparently they aren't really even sure why it happened. They think it was because there were layers of limestone deposited at different strengths and the weaker layers have eroded faster then the stronger ones causing this formation. They are pretty cool. There is also a huge blow hole here that is apparently pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, we were there on a day when the ocean was pretty calm, so even at high tide, there wasn't much happening at the blow hole.

The pancake rocks

 

Our last day on the coast we spent in a tiny town doing one of the coolest things either of us has ever done. We were in Barrytown making our own knives with Steven and Robyn. Our friend CP recommended the place and it was so awesome! Steven and Robyn are this old couple who retired to Barrytown and started this knife making business almost 10 years ago and it has become very popular. Steven started out making knives years ago as a backyard hobby and just decided to turn it into a business as a way to retire early. You start the day with a piece of carbon steel made from black sand from Auckland and you forge the steel yourself and flatten it out into a knife shape (what really happens though is that you do about 10% of the shaping and then Steven comes along and works his magic and really makes it start to take shape). After that you spend the rest of the day making a handle out of Rimu wood and Australian brass, shaping and sanding the blade and the handle until you end up with this gorgeous knife. It was such a cool thing to do and totally unique. Thanks for the recommendation Ceeps! And during the day you can also do some axe and ninja star throwing when you're bored. So fun!

No big deal - we made those!

 

One of the girls who did the knife making with us was Judith from Holland. She has been backpacking around NZ for 4 months and had to start making her way up to Auckland to fly home in a week, so she ended up catching a ride with us up towards Nelson after our day of knife making. It was pretty hilarious having 3 people sitting in the front seat of Wanda, but it was nice to be able to help her out a little since most of her travelling is done by hitchhiking. We drove together up to Westport that night, then spent the night there and ate at this restaurant with massive portions. Honestly, you would have thought you were in a restaurant in the States the portions were so big. The next day we kept on trucking and made it as far as Nelson with her. We were stopping here because we were heading to Able Tasman National Park in a day, and Judith was going to catch a bus to Picton for the ferry to the north island.

One our way from Westport to Nelson we made one cool stop at the Buller Gorge, which has New Zealand's longest swing bride (110m). It also had a little side bush hike to the Ariki Falls that we decided to do...bad idea. First of all, Dave and I were wearing flipflops (not the best choice for footwear). Second of all, it had rained the day before so it was pretty muddy. We did pretty well for most of the walk, except for some muddy feet we were okay. That was until we hit one steep decline and I slipped and landed on by butt in a pile of mud. And to top it all off, the Ariki Falls were not impressive. I wouldn't have even called it a waterfall! Very disappointing!

We spent the last day in Nelson just preparing for our 3 day trip in the Able Tasman. On our way to Motueka, the town where we would be started the trip from, we came cross another cute little town called Mapua. We stopped in for the afternoon to have a look around and have lunch. We ended up at the Golden Bear Brewery, which is a little craft brewery run by a guy from California. We sampled a few beers and then were on our way. Mapua was a sweet little town with cool little shops and a nice spot to stop for an afternoon.

Then we were headed to Able Tasman for 2 days of kayaking and 1 day of hiking along the coast.

Thanks for reading

xoxoxo