Christchurch is one of the bigger cities in New Zealand. Our bus driver had nothing nice to say about it. He didn’t really care for it. When you got there you realized why he didn’t really care for it. Of all the amazing things we have seen in New Zealand this place had Nothing. Apparently some British man came over and decided that he was going to make a mini England city in Christchurch. So it is a small English town but doesn’t look like it at all. It also has no skyscrapers so it is a very short city. We spent a bit of the afternoon watching a World Buskers Festival. I think we missed the good ones though. After that we enjoyed some Indian curry with some of our bus mates that were leaving that night to go back home. It was an early night in and an early morning. We stayed in a Base Backpacker Hostel which we are sick of. They are this huge chain in Australia and New Zealand. They are expensive, hold tons of people, do not have good hospitality, in old buildings, are not very clean and have a big focus on draining backpackers money in their bars.
The exciting part, we left Christchurch at about 7:15 am this morning and headed on a 3 and a half hour journey to Kaikoura. This is apparently known as New Zealand’s best kept secret. They have lots of whale watching, dolphin watching and swimming, seal swimming, fishing and all that great stuff. I would have loved to swim with dolphins but it was too expensive. Our bus driver told us that even though the swimming with seals option was cheaper than dolphin swimming it was definitely the better deal of the two because there was more interaction and what not, so Erin and I decided to do the seal swimming. We spent the morning in our wonderful little hostel hanging out and tanning until 4 oclock when the man came around to pick us up. We put on wet suits and picked up snorkelling gear and he took 4 of us out to the sea colony. Our guide is actually the owner of our hostel and another hostel in the town, very down to earth, quiet guy. He took us swimming all around the seals that were sitting up on rocks and in the water. When the first seal came to me I was quite scared. I had my complete trust in it that it was not just going to come out and attack me. The seals usually swam around us and checked us out to see if we were safe and then they would play with us. They would splash, jump and and swim circles around us. We swam to a couple different coves and hung out with them. We had to be careful when we got too close to the rocks and shallow water not to splash around too much until they were comfortable with us. (Little note: when we went as a bus to visit seals on the rocks early some of them got very angry and growled at people because they got in between them and the sea. This happens on land and shallow water because they do not feel safe. Once they are in the sea they are tame as.) We spent an hour and a half swimming around with different seals and checking out the baby cubs sitting on the rocks. Soooo cute. They have neat little personalities, some of them enjoyed teasing us when we were with them in the water. Near the end the seals we were with started showing us their teeth, they have some scary looking sharp teeth, I assumed they would have teeth like cows. I could go on and on about my experience but I think you get the main excitement of it. Unfortunately, no one had underwater cameras so we didn’t get any photos. Maybe that was for the best because then I spent the whole time enjoying it rather than trying to get a good photo.
Today we are off to Wellington to spend a couple days, it seemed only a week ago that this trip felt like it was not going to end for awhile, which was nice. Now we only have a week and some left. Sigh, New Zealand is a recommended place to see, I would say even over Australia.
That’s it for now,
Holly and David
Tiki Tour - roundabout way to get somewhere; scenic tour
After repeatedly telling the driver we needed to get there quickly to use the longdrop he still took the Tiki Tour
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