1-31-10
So the entire trip Brain has been on a mission to buy one thing. A shirt from Invercargill. Invercargill is home of the world's fastest Indian Motorcycle. We find the motorcycle and all the cool shirts, except one problem, they don't have the size Brian needed. So sad. But he was excited to see the bike. The town of Invercargill looked like it would have been a cool town except EVERYHING was closed (it was a Sunday). So we cruised the town a little and then went off to see some waterfalls.
We were at this one waterfall and there were two Japanese kids there. They were probably 18 or 19. The guy wanted his picture taken in front of the waterfall...so he rock-hops out to this bigger rock and sits down, puts his knees up and feet out, tilts his head back, and looks off into the distance. Am I really seeing this? SOOO FUNNY! Then, the girlfriend who is totally serious, pulls out her cell-phone and starts clicking away! All he needed was a fan to blow his hair back and he totally could have been on a calendar!
After that laugh we headed off to Curio Bay. Curio Bay is known for its petrified forest. IT WAS SO COOL! There were tree stumps dating back the Jurassic Period that have been fossilized in the ocean floor. When it is low tide you can see a ton of stumps. We walked around there for a while and watched the blue waves crash on the rocks, we checked out the tide pools, and I was mesmerized by the kelp! The creepy creepy kelp! Watching is sway back and forth...kinda cool stuff !
We then headed off to Dunedin. Dunedin has sea lion and penguin colonies! SWEET! We were off to find the penguins. So we were driving and we see a girl walking down the road...we've been wanting to pick up a hitchhiker...meet Kia! Kia was 22 from Boulder, CO; had dreads, she loves farmers markets and smelled awful! She told us she wanted a ride to Sandfly Bay--she heard that at dusk penguins and sea lions would come to the beach. SO, she started walking to Sandfly Bay. Well this works out, we were just looking for penguins!
We arrive at Sandfly Bay. We make our way down this crazy sand dune...it was quite the hike...after the gravity educed run down the dune we saw the glorious beach! Giant rock formation acted like bookends on either side of the beach. The sun was setting with beautiful colors of orange, pinks, and blues filling the sky. It truly was beautiful. When we made our way down the dune we ran into 3 ladies at the bottom. One was a "park ranger/volunteer thing" and the others were just visitors. We asked about the penguins...the informative one said, "they come out at dusk but they wont come out with people on the beach..." as she was sharing all of her wisdom with us, I looked out over the water, with the sun turning the sky a more dominant orange...the waves were crashing down on sand that was packed hard and when the water went back into the ocean, it left just enough sand wet to give a reflection of the orange sunset...to my surprise what did I see pop out of the wave and start to waddle onto the beach? YES! A yellow-eyed penguin. They are a very rare species of penguin and normally very shy. "Is that a penguin right there?" I interrupted the intelligent volunteer. She was shocked...yes, yes it was! Totally made my night. I was so excited to see one. We watched the little guy waddle his way up some rocks and to his nest where he disappeared for the night.
We walked down the beach some more and stumbled upon some crazy huge sea lions. We took a picture of Clyde with a sea lion...that was sketchy. They were just hanging out in the sand. So surreal to see all of this. The cool part was this was not a zoo, there was not a fee to get into the park, there were not guards all over the place telling you not to go near the animals...it was just real nature at its finest! *ok so that sounds a bit cheesy, but it's true!*
Brian, Kia and I were all walking down the beach...I was totally trying to hook Kia and Brian up...I mean, he thinks dreads are hot, Kia had dreads. Brian is 22...Kia was 22...She likes to travel and so does Brian. She likes Farmers Markets and BOOM...so does Brian! In my eyes they were perfect for each other! Why would this not work? Oh Brian...he's too picky he doesn't go for girls who drop out of school and travel with NO money, nor does he want to have to plug his nose every time he sees his girlfriend. I told him there was nothing a good shower wouldn't cure...I mean he didn't smell that good himself!
Anyway, we had a good time getting to know Kia, she really was a cool girl. We drove he closer to town and let her off at a gas station and as tradition would have it...we needed to take a picture of her with Clyde. "Clyde...? Clyde? Where are you?...BRIAN WHERE'S CLYDE???" Sheer panic set in! CLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYDE!!! Ok my wallet was one thing, but Clyde...he was a whole other story! "We have to go back!" Kia took a picture without Clyde, she made a sad face for the picture, got out and wished us luck finding him.
SO back to Sandfly Bay we went. By this time it was 11:00pm, the moon was full and the wind was blowing hard. Remember that hike up and down the sand dune...yeah, we had to do that ALL OVER AGAIN! Brian was a trooper leading the way down the dune in the moonlight with our headlamps on, we were in search for poor ole' Clyde. Brian let me know several times that I owe his a beer for his hunting efforts. Sure...that's fine...whatever, you can have a 12 pack...this is no time for joking. We need to find Clyde. With the wind blowing hard, it was causing the sand to cover up everything quickly, our footprints from 45 mins ago were just about gone. Brian made it to the bottom of the dune before I, and I heard, "Nicole..come here." "Did you find him?" "yes" HOORAY! Clyde was found. As I approached the scene, I saw Clyde's body prints rolling down the hill to where he lay...helplessly, face down in the sand. It was a scary hour for us all, but I'm sure you are glad to know that he is safe and sound and back with me now. He sure is a trooper. Little guy must have fallen out of my pocket while I was huffin' it up the dune.
After our hike to the car (with Clyde), we decided to just spend the night in the car in the Sandfly Bay parking lot.
I guess we were still on a high from seeing that penguin that we set an alarm for 5AM so we could run down the dune and watch the penguins go out to sea. When else could we ever do that? What a cool experience. Alarm set...reclined the seats, and off to bed we went.
5AM came way too soon. After about 5 hits of the "snooze" button, I asked Brian if he wanted to go down...both of us in our sleep..."When will we ever see this again" Brian asked, ready to go down there...My response, "National Geographic’s." We both laughed and went back to bed. I'm still not too sure how I was that funny in my sleep. It was quite the day!
2-1-10
So come 9:30 we finally get out of Sunny (that's our sweet car) and we headed off to explor the rest of the peninsula. There
was an albatross colony and penguin colony around here somewhere and we wanted to find it. Turns out you had to pay for tours
at both places. We are not into paying for things, so...we left. (no we did not steal anything or jump a fence...we just
drove off). We drove around for a little bit and made out way into Dunedin...by the way, has been probably been my favorite
city so far. Here's one for ya...Does anyone know what Dunedin is home to? Anyone? YES! Cadbury Chocolate! Umm, we'll have two tickets to tour your factory please! What a blast. It was a great tour and we got "heaps" of free chocolate outta the deal.
Here's some Jeopardy trivia for ya:
1. Cadbury in the US is actually made by Hersey's Chocolate.
2. Kiwi's consume about 4 kilo's of chocolate a year...Americans: 22 kilos! haha
3. Cadbury's Rocky Road: MOST DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE BAR INVENTED!
4. All chocolate made by Cadbury is made to order
5. All the fancy eggs and bunnies: detailed by hand AND packaged by hand.
6. They make eggs and bunnies 6 months out of the year for one holiday
7. Cadbury chocolate in NZ and in the US will taste different b/c they are not made with the same milk.
I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of right now. Yeah, so that was fun.
Then we had five mins to run to the Speight's Brewery tour. Speight's is a New Zealand beer and the tour guide was great. He
was a funny old man. After that tour we were able to sample some of their beers. I don't remember what happened next...JUST
KIDDING.
After the tour we went back to Sandfly Bay...Brian wanted to boogy board on the waves and I was going to nap on the beach!
GLORIOUS! Our plan was to hang out there until sunset and hope to see some more penguins.
When we got to the beach, it was SO WINDY! OUtta control windy! The sand would hurt your legs as it blasted past along the
beach. The waves were pretty big, but because the wind was so strong, the waves had an offspray heading back off to sea.
There were rainbows in the off spray; that was pretty cool to see. Brian got in his wetsuit, I got my snacks...we were off to
fight the wind. Brian lasted 15 mins in the water and in those same 15 mins I had sand in my ears, mouth, clothes, snacks,
hair...the whole 9 yards! Brian went back up to the car to dry off and watch a movie in Sunny and I hung out on the beach.
despite the blasting of the sand.
As I wondered down the beach I saw a sea lion relaxing. I stopped to talk to a guy from New York who was also intrigued by
the lazy sea lion. We chatted about sea lions, New Zealand, Florida and New York being the same place, all the typical
surface stuff...as we're chatting, he says, "Oh look here comes another sea lion..." I look over to my left and sure enough
out of the huge waves comes another sea lion. This was so crazy...I was watching a sea lion come out of the water and walk?
hop? waddle? his way over to this sea lion laying down. As the new one gets closer, the lazy one picks his head up and looks
to see who is coming to visit. The new one gets all up in this lazy guys business...they exchange some sea lion jargon. The
new sea lion must have heard something like, "umm get the heck away from me I'm tired, and I might kill you if you bother me
again" because just as fast as the new sea lion had come....he also left...back off into the beautiful blue water...Maybe one
of the coolest things I've seen.
Some time had past and I decided to make the trek back up to the car. After some lazy reading and relaxing in Sandfly Bay
parking lot...just waiting for sunset. The time had finally come. Back down the dune to see penguins make their way back to
the nest. *sunset is the best time to see them*
So we head down the dune in hopes to see 5 penguin...that was our goal. We're walking down the beach and there goes
one...just hopped out of the water and waddled across the beach...through out the night we saw a total of 4 penguins. One guy
got out of the water and hiked up this huge mountain. It took him about 30 mins....waddle, waddle, rest...waddle, waddle
rest...Pretty entertaining to watch. We saw several more sea lions and another amazing sunset. It was a great night and
again, totally free.
We took off heading for a place to stay for the night. By this time it was pretty dark. We were following the GPS to a
campsite Brain spotted. Now Brian has a gift for knowing where to go when it comes to finding us a place to sleep. He is
normally in charge of that...BUT tonight...the GPS led us astray. We went 15K up this one lane gravel road. No need to
fear...there are a lot of one-lane, gravel roads that seem as if they are leading off to nowhere and then, right when you
think you've gone the wrong way the beautiful place we were looking for pops out. SO as normal, we were thinking this was the
Strange yet, right way. As we reach what is suppose to be a camp site we come to a little wooden sign that read, "Mount Stalker" and under the name in a smaller print it read, "You are here at your own risk" AHHHH!! Brian turned the car around as fast as he could and took off! We were flying down the dirt road talking about how creepy that sign was when out of no where something popped out in front of the car DUN DUN DUN DUNNNN...a hare! GEEZ bunny! Do you mind...we're a little sketched out at the moment and the last thing we need is some bunny jumping out at us. That joker ran in front of the car for about 45 seconds maintaining a 60 KPH speed. We were both very impressed with this guy, who then chose to jump back into the bushes where smart bunnies hangoutwhen a car is driving down the road!
We made it to the camp site, that was only 2K off the main road! We got the site and as we were getting ready for bed, I got
out of the car (still a little creeped out at the whole Mount Stalker idea and all the scary thoughts that were going through my head) to go pee. Well because of my fears I didn't want to wonder off far from the car. So I shut the passenger door, and pee right there by the car...go to the trunk to throw my TP away (that’s for you Brooke Cheley-Klebe: leave no trace!) and as I walk back (barefooted) to get in the car, I step in my PEE! haha I can't believe I'm sharing this story with everyone. It was pretty funny though. Off to find the baby wipes! Oh the good times of camping in a car for 5 days and not showering!
2-2-10
So one of our favorite things to do here in New Zealand is library hop! Libraries tend to have free WiFi and we both love our Facebook and Skype! So, we spent sometime today hitting up the local library. Where we also found a book sale. Nothing beats a 50 cent book--no not the rapper, I’m talking about currency….ya know? ½ a dollar…ok. Anyway, we found some books…Skyped it up and updated our status.
We heard about a blue penguin colony and we wanted to go and check that out. Too bad, we had to pay to see them, so we left. Got a cool picture of a “Slow: Penguin Crossing” sign, it’s everyday you get to see that.
We hit up the grocery store and had the brilliant idea of buying pre-seasoned hamburger meat, some garlic and butter bread and some pasta salad. We ate like kings this night. It was pretty good. Total dinner cost: $14.00! Not too shabby!
You’ll never guess where we slept? Yup….Sunny for the 3rd night in a row!
We didn’t do a whole lot today. But lazy days are good every now and then.
2-3-10
In the middle of the night we were both startled awake to the horn blaring. In a failed attempt to get more comfortable and put my feet up on the dashboard I somehow managed to get my foot stuck on the horn. Nicole about died laughing, I guess it scared me and my face was pretty hilarious when I woke up. It took another 20 or 30 minutes to get back to sleep after that, because Nicole couldn't stop giggling.
We woke up, returned the seats to the upright positions and headed into Christchurch. We found the coolest library we have seen yet. It had a coffee cafe in it, as well as bright colors everywhere, big screen tvs with playstations connected as well as a few showing espn, and plenty of outlets for laptops. We spent some time there catching up online and figuring out what to do for the rest of the day. After the sleep in the car we were both feeling showers were a necessity and went about finding a hostel where we could pay to shower. we struck out at 3 or 4 places before a fellow traveler tipped us off about a really busy hostel in downton where you could pretty much walk in and use the shower facilities without being bothered. Worth a shot right? We found the hostel and nervously walked in, past the front check in desk, and up the stairs. Our confidence grew and shortly after we found the bathrooms and were enjoying hot showers, with free towels too!
As we were walking back to the car, feeling like a million bucks, I spotted a small sign featuring Britten designs. John Britten was a kiwi engineering genious who had designed and built a few motorcycles in his workshop, which were successful in world championship competitions as well as winning at Daytona. He died unfortunately a few years ago and development has been halted. I walked into the studio to see 2 of the original 10 motorcycles sitting there. It was great to be able to get close enough to touch them and look at them up close, as most of them are behind glass or out of arms reach.
We left the Britten gallery and headed out to a free NZ airforce museum that we had seen on the way in town. I proceeded to turn into a full on engineering geek, while Nicole enjoyed the blue skies and grassy area outside to read her book. They had many different aircraft at the exhibit, ranging from wright bros replicas to newer jets. My favorite part of the museum were the cutaway views of various engines. It's always fun to see the inner workings of different engines. We finished up at the aviation museum and headed back to downton to see an art museum. The billboards and advertisements we had seen made us excited to walk around this museum, but after spending about 5 minutes inside, we were rather bored and decided we didn't really appreciate "true" art.
Since it was still early in the afternoon, we went to the beach to relax and do some reading. I ended up renting a surf board for a couple hours and floundering around like a wounded seal, unsuccessfully trying to stand up. It felt great to be in the water though, and I got a good workout swimming back and forth along the beach. We were getting pretty hungry and came up with a craving for pizza and beer. Lucky enough, the first restaurant we stopped at had a happy hour special for free pizza with any alcohol purchase...BINGO!! We ordered our beers and started talking to the bartender, who happened to be from Wisconsin and a part owner of the bar. After making friends with him and talking for a bit, he ended up giving me another beer, both of us more free slices of pizza, and a huge discount on our overall bill. It was the best meal we have had out so far, and by far the cheapest. It was getting late, so we hit the road and found a place in Kaikoura to park the car, and for the too many'th night in a row...sleep in sunny.
2-4-10
Today we were headed to Kaikura. As routine, we wake up, make our seat come upright, look around and drive off. It’s such a lazy way of getting around. Nothing to clean up or pack up, just sit up and BOOM, you’re on your way. Brain prefers the tent….but I love the “conveniences” pf the car. After arriving at the Kaikura information center, we checked things out, chose not to spend money today (surprise surprise) and just wanted to spend some time on a beach reading.
In the parking lot, I made some oatmeal. I’m not sure if it was the new oats, the water, or my lack of domestic skills, but it was the worst oatmeal ever! I fired myself from making breakfast ever again. *strange side note: Brian and I both have those little 3-in-one utensils, (spoon on one end, and a knife and fork on the other)…and one of them broke at breakfast today and the other one broke at dinner….in the same spot. So strange*
Anyway, we stopped at some beaches and saw lots of fur seals hanging out on the rocks. It was fun to see them, as always. Brian got in at one rocky beach where there were tons of seals all over the place. He said the water was freezing and the seals didn’t come close enough to him to get a picture of one underwater.
We found another beach….it was a glorious day. Sun shining bright, not a cloud in the sky. Kinda funny, because that is the kind of weather we’ve been running into. It has only rained on us once, and at that, it wasn’t even that bad….and only lasted about 2 hours. Every time we get somewhere the locals will say, “man I hope you are enjoying the sun today, we’ve had nothing but overcast, rainy days.” Guess it’s the Florida ties we both have that are keeping it sunny…that or the Lord has truly blessed us with great weather. Places that are known for their excessive rain, have been blue skies and beautiful.
Hammocks are up, we used a tree and Sunny to hang our hammocks. Poor Sunny almost had his doors pulled off, but we were laying around like royalty! Eating cookies, drinking our favorite Passion soda, sugar, bad for you drink., and reading our books! We hung out there for pretty much the whole day. Brian went for a long swim and I ate all the snacks while he wasn’t looking. He started to threaten…if I continue to eat more than him, I’ll have to pay 2/3 of the grocery bill. I have to sneak snacks from the Keeper of the Food! He has started locking it up in the trunk and not giving me the key! Thankfully Sunny has a “pop the trunk feature.”
We left the beach and made our way towards Picton. This was our last night on the south island. We chose to sleep in Sunny yet again. We found this real special bathroom/picnic park and slept in the parking lot. There was a bright street light above us, a train track that was allowing way too many loud trains by and a strinkin’ airport all in arms reach of our parking spot. But in the morning when all we did was sit up and drive off, it made the loud night all worth it.
2-5-10
Today was another lazy day. We drove out of our nice parking lot and made way for the small town of Picton. We need to catch the ferry tonight at 7 to return to the north island. We seriously hung out in the Piction Library all day. Uploaded 250 pictures and worked on our blog entries.
We got hungry, picked up lunch at a local Fish and Chips joint and walked down to this little beach. There were sting rays in the water, mountains in the background, and sailboats drifting by. With again, perfectly blue skies above. Hung out, ate our lunch. I paid $3.80 for Diet Coke and it was the best Diet Coke ever.
We walked back to the car to see find that we got a parking ticket. OOPS. I guess the town of Picton is serious when it comes to their 60 minute parking policy. AND that turned into my bookmark. We felt bad for Share (the chipmunk we got with my Happy Meal at the beginning of the trip…Sunny and Share…) anyway, Share watches the car while we’re gone….she sits on the dash board--poor Share, had to watch the whole thing go down.
We made it to the ferry. We’re both excited for a shower (it’s been a couple of days), and the ability to do laundry. Two much need details we rarely get around to doing!
a2-6-10
Although it took us a while to get to sleep, we woke up feeling refreshed and ready to go. The beds were super comfortable and best of all, nothing like sunny's seats. Nicole relaxed around the house for a bit, while I went to the open air market with the Renee and Julie (people we were staying with). We stocked up on fresh fruits, veggies, and meat for the evenings bbq. We got back to the house and decided to go watch a cricket match and see if we could figure out how the game was played. Renee's boyfriend, Mark, plays in a cricket league on the weekends, and it was nice to watch a match in a casual atmosphere where we could ask questions and figure out the rules. The weather was once again beautiful, so we sat outside watching cricket and having a couple beers in the sun.
We went back to Mark and Renee's for a bbq that evening and wow, Renee is quite the cook. We had a meal of prawns, chicken,lamb, and veggies...most of which was cooked on the bbq. It was the first time we have had NZ lamb while we have been here, and it was as tender as a filet steak, with just the perfect amount of seasoning. After dinner we headed back into Wellington. Once a year there is a huge rugby tournament that Wellington hosts called 7's. This shortened, faster paced version of rugby has only 7 players per team and 7 minutes per half. IT is generally much more action packed and great for spectators. The games go on all day Friday and Saturday, with people dressing up and partying in the streets afterwards. We met a few of Marks cricket buddies at a house downtown to watch the rest of the games. After the finals were over, the girls headed home, and Mark and I along with his buddies headed downtown to join in the festivities. I have never seen anything like it, there were people everywhere. Dressed up like football players, men in drag, hooters girls, a few rocky balboas, top gun actors, and even a couple statues of liberty...neither of which were American but were entertaining to talk to for a while. We all walked around for a while, played a couple embarrassing games of pool, and then caught a taxi home...I got back to Mark and Renees to find poor sunny sitting in the street, with his keys locked inside...I wonder who could have done that?...to be continued
2.7.10
Today was a lazy day. We hung around the Sheehan’s, spent some time online, and went to the mall. I am missing New Orleans quite a bit. Parades have started and the Saints are playing in the Superbowl tomorrow. I could really go for some King Cake and beads! Brian and I are planning on finding a sports bar around here to watch the game. Kinda of strange to watch the Superbowl on a Monday at 1230pm. Hopefully we won’t be the only two in the bar.
We are starting to understand cricket and rugby…crazy sports they have here. All is well. GEAUX SAINTS!
OH I also found out that New Zealand has Magnum Bars! That was exciting. Magnum Bars are ice cream bars that are sold in Israel. They are delicious! I was pretty excited to see them here. I bought Brian one and we walked around a little bit.
:and now the Brians continuation:
In order for me to get to the Sheehans for that lazy day, I had a challenge ahead of me. Somehow the keys had been locked in the car the night before and unfortunately it would be $85 if we had to call the locksmith. Of course I was not going to stand for that, so with determination, and a coat hanger in hand I went outside to beak into poor Sunny. It took a while to snag the locking mechanism, but I finally got the door unlocked...the keys now stay in my pocket.
After our walk around downtown we returned to the Sheehan's for annother excellent dinner and great conversation. It has been really fun getting to know them. We sat around talking for a couple hours over wine and dessert and enjoyed one last night in proper beds for a while.
