So it was a sad day – the beginning of the end. About 2 days of travelling back home.. Which started out with a drive to airport in Christchurch. Unfortunately, the drop of point for the camper was busy as heck.
Mish stayed at the airport and organized our flights, while I waited for an hour to return the camper.
With all the waiting that we weren’t ready for, we missed the 12pm flight to Auckland.
So we were stuck waiting for a couple more hours, had some lunch at the airport, and got on the 3pm flight.
Once we got to Auckland, we grabbed a shuttle to the Hyatt for our last night’s stay. It was a pretty good plan that way. After about two weeks in a camper, it was great to have a night in a hotel, with a great shower, and all the creature comforts!
We walked around town for a bit, had a dinner on Vulcan street in a little pub, where I watched a bit of jet boat racing called “jetsprinting”.. First time I’d seen that. Typical adrenaline seeking stuff around here. Boat races, where the boats make 90 degree turns, whipping around crazy fast.
After some relaxation, we had a swim at the Hyatt, relaxed in the hot tub.. then went to bed very early, since our flight to Sydney in the morning was at 6am, and we’d have to be there an hour early at least, and it would take close to an hour to get there…
Day 18
We woke at 3am to go to airport for the 6am flight.. Everything went rather smoothly, though we got the very back of the plane…. It wasn’t a long flight though, so not a big deal..
We got onto the flight we wanted from Sydney to Vancouver, so that was a relief though.. So after a couple hours sitting around in the Sydney airport, we headed for Canada!
We were lucky enough to get Executive class seats as well, which would help for the crazy long flight (~16 hours?). They were the bed seats that fold flat for sleeping.. Great stuff.
I took a pic with my phone as we left Sydney:
I took another pic from my phone as we approached Vancouver..
We then got onto our Toronto bound flight as planned, though we were at the back of the bus for that one. Mish and I both had isle seats, a couple rows apart from each other.. But at least we got on the flight!
So that wrapped up our Honeymoon in New Zealand.. It was an amazing time.. It was “Sweet As” as they say! I highly recommend NZ to anyone, if you are lucky enough to get the opportunity.. Just to list them out, here are a few things we wanted to do, but didn’t have the chance (3 weeks isn’t near enough for everything!):
White Island: a volcanic island
North Western edge of the north island: sand dunes, sand surfing..
South Island Day 16 – Kaikoura Whale Watching & Dolphins
We drove down the east coast to Kaikoura for the last event of the trip.. A Whale Watch tour which we booked before we left..
My hopes weren’t too high, as I didn’t know too much about the area, though they had a web site that showed stats for what was spotted each day – and they looked like pretty good odds.
We loaded into a pretty powerful boat, with a glassed in interior, and viewing decks outside. When the boat loaded, people rushed the gates, and it turned out that Mish and I had to sit apart inside.. That kinda sucked, but it turned out that we were only inside in-between sightings – and there were to be many of them!
I think within the first half hour, we had our first sighting. The boat launched into high gear, and flew across the ocean to where the whale was.. Then they opened the doors, and we rushed out to get a glimpse of my first Sperm whale.. Here is a pic of him diving..
The next time we got a sighting, I took a short flick to give you an idea of the boat racing.. I missed a couple of the big jumps we made over the waves, but this gives you a bit of the idea..
And here is the second Sperm whale diving..
While I took the still photo, Michelle videotaped it with the other camera (yes, we each had our own cameras for this tour!) :
Here is a pic which gives you a bit of the feel for how huge Sperm whales are.. Just massive bodies swimming in the ocean…
This pic gives you a view to their blubber.. The insulation that allows them to dive for about an hour in the freezing depths..
After about 4 sightings of 3 Sperm whales (the last sighting was the same whale as the first sighting – after he had come back to the surface from his dive which lasted over an hour) we started heading back..
But then they spotted a huge pack of dusky dolphins – 400 or so apparently (we could see about 100, and they say for every 1 you can see, there are 3 under the surface)..
Here is one pic showing one of these little dudes launching up..
They were very ‘playful’.. You could see them jumping and doing flips in the air all over the place.. There were so many of them, I got the feeling I could walk across them to the shore…
Note that the flips aren’t actually them ‘playing’, but actually hunting.. They apparently hunt in packs, and while one guy goes up and splashes the surface, the others wait down below to feed on the fish that got scared down..
It was quite an amazing feeling to see these creatures.. All in the wild, in their natural habitat..
I just caught the landing of the flip in this one.. Notice the amazing background even.. It was a beautiful day, with wicked scenery..
Another group shot..
Sorry for the camera work on this one.. but a couple good flips caught here..
The number of dolphins was just amazing.. It really put the little pack of dolphins we had seen in Milford Sound to shame! (If you haven’t seen it, you can check out all the other days of our honeymoon in the drop down above (click on the name of the slate in the white text box next to my profile pic)
After the tour was over, we grabbed some souvenirs for the nieces, and planned out our flights home for a bit.
We also hit a Fudge factory where the guy makes tons of flavours… He just came back from vacation in the north island. The fudge was great, and he was very friendly.. Just a little shop down the street from the whale watch. Funny how the locals think a trip to the other New Zealand island is a vacation! We met a few like that.. And Australians who had never been to New Zealand.. crazy!
Once we were all sorted out, we headed for Christchurch, which was a much bigger city then we’d seen in a while.. We camped there for the night, ready to head back to the North Island tomorrow..
The day started off by waking up to a bird call that sounded like a door creaking. Was quite annoying, but got us up at about the right time.. Had some breakfast, then made our way to the Kayaking tour company..
We hopped into a bus, which brought us over to a launching area. The launching area was at low tide, so they took the water taxis out by tracker over the sand..
We took the “aqua taxi” from Marahau to Tobu then jumped into our kayaks and headed to Anchorage.
The taxi driver gave us a little info on the area, and stopped by the “apple rock”..
It was a beautiful sunny day, with slightly choppy seas… But great fun to Kayak in. We kayaked out to a little rock island to see some more seals…
Pretty much kayaked around that little island, then continued on..
It got wavy at times, to the point we were worried about tipping over.. With waves at times that rolled by with crests and valleys like 10 feet in height difference..
After a couple hours of kayaking along the shore and chatting with our guide, we stopped for a little picnic lunch at a little lagoon which was just starting to fill in as high tide was on it’s way.. This pic is looking into the lagoon, and me walking around:
This pic is looking the other way, out to sea.. The way we came, and went.
And a random shot of a bug on the beach (Mish was still practicing with the macro shots!):
We didn’t mind relaxing on the beach for awhile, since it was quite tiring kayaking for a couple hours.. But eventually we had to head back out.. We passed by some populated rocks..
There were lots of beautiful views.. But of course it’s not so easy to take some pictures with your camera while kayaking ;).. Anyway, eventually we got to our destination (thankfully its a one-way trip!), and our guide was nice enough to take our pics (she would do so throughout the trip she said, but today the seas were a little too choppy)
When we hit the beach, it turned out there were a ton of tours that ended there.. Never seen so many Kayaks! Everyone was waiting for the water taxis, so we waited our turn for maybe half hour or so..
Then we got our aqua taxi back to Marahau, and drove out to Blenheim for the night. On the way, we passed by a little mountain that was being blanketed by a cloud.. It looked so nice Mish had to take a pic:
Another thing about the drive I remember, was that all around Motueka people have written their names and drawn pics with rocks on the low tide sands along the road.. I wish I took a couple pics of that! There were hundreds and hundreds of names and pictures.. Some small, and many large ones. Some of them would likely show up on Google Maps if they took the pic at that time..
We spent the night at Blenheim, which was close enough to Kaikoura so we could get to the Whale watch tour we had booked for tomorrow morning..
South Island Day 13 & 14 – Mapua, Pohara, Pupu Springs, Horseback Riding
Day 13
The weather was a bit iffy.. So we decided to just take our time and make our way close to where we would be horseback riding tomorrow. There would be lots to see on the way..
So we drove along the coast for a bit to a small town called Mapua, and had lunch on the wharf.. This is a shot from our lunch table..
It was a nice relaxing lunch, until we started getting eaten by the sand flies – luckily right when we were done.. So we got the heck out of the restaurant and started to move around to keep the bugs away..
The town is known as an artsy area, and the wharf was no exception.. there were plenty of art shops, so we strolled through a couple.. Mish bought some small artwork for her mom and other folks..
We hit the road again, along the coast to Motueka, just to check out the beach, a local pool, and scope out a possible place to stay for tomorrow… There was supposed to be some sort of shipwreck there too, but we didn’t see it..
We continued on the road, across another mountain (Takaka hill) which had great valley views and a million zigs and zags. It runs along the edge of Abel Tasman (the upper right green corner of the map above, is a national park called Abel Tasman), which is where we were planning on sea kayaking in a couple days..
Here is a panoramic near the top of Takaka.. the road zig zags to the right, and eventually leads down to the valley..
A closer look at the road ahead..
I took a quick shot in the same area.. and while the below pick looks like a big calm lake with mountains around it…
It’s actually just a puddle on a rock, with mountains in the background 😉 I put the camera right on the rock to take the pic..
So we made it to the campsite pretty early, found a spot there, and hung out on the beach (Pohara Beach).
I read on the beach until I couldn’t take the cold wind anymore.. While Mish wandered around the beach and took photos (she claimed it wasn’t do cold).. Maybe I was still wrapping up my little cold I had, but I was not warm! It actually seemed like when the sun was out, it was warm.. But I think there were only 2 clouds in the ski, and they just kept taking turns covering the sun..they seemed to speed to cover the sun, then stop until the next one got there. Very frustrating!
Here are some of Michelle’s pics:
Mish poked and prodded the sea cucumber a bit.. and took a video.. it moves slow, but if you look closely, you kinda see it’s ‘fat’ section moving..
She took a pick of me just before I left for the camper.. I look like an old man! I was facing the sun, with a towel to cover the wind, and I was still cold!
I went back to the camper, and she continued to take more pics for a bit..
When she finally came in, we had dinner, and played cards until the stars came out.
Day 14
Back to glorious sunshine thankfully..And today’s main goal: Horseback Riding!
But first a couple stops.. First, we stopped at The Grove, where limestone is shaped in-between huge trees and vines & roots..
Unfortunately, my Batteries died so no photos of some cool nature there. There were some very interestingly shaped rocks and trees handing on to them.. It was a beautiful spot.
I felt like I was in a Disney film for a bit, when a very friendly little bird danced around me for a while before we left. I thought for a sec it was going to perch on my shoulder!
Then we stopped at Pupu (Te Waikoropupu) Springs… The “clearest fresh water in the world”.
Crystal clear and constantly gushing water from the geysers at the bottom of the ponds
Fish swimming by were really easy to see..
And they had a neat set up, where a couple mirrors where placed under water, so you could see the underwater action.. We watched a duck diving 50 feet away… You can make out the duck’s feet swimming on the surface in the photo below..(it’s a picture of the mirror)
Then we made it to the Farewell Horse Riding, just in time to eat lunch before hopping on our rides. The guide was a friendly young guy from England if I remember right.. He was travelling around, and making cash as a guide.. Currently at this spot, near the Farewell Spit of New Zealand (the sand dunes at the top of this pic – the northern edge of the south island of NZ)..
The funny thing about the pic below (near the start of the trail), is that it kinda looks like I have a headless horse!
Mine was an old guy (22 yrs) who knew the deal… I only had to nudge him to get back on track or speed up a couple times. He definitely took advantage of my lack of experience, and ate grass constantly (apparently a no-no when riding)
The pic above is about where the trail began to climb.. through a bit of forest. We continued to climb from that point, gaining more and more of a view, such as this one to the beach:
Actually, there were a few trails to choose from, which Mish had a hard time of, since she wanted to do them all.. A beach ride was one of them.. But we went for the hills and view..
Once the climb was over, we had an amazing view of the Farwell Spit, and all around it really – 360 degrees atop some high hills and above Old Man Rock (a rock face which we could see back at the ranch..)
I took a pic from on the horse, of the spit:
At times on the trail, there were spots to speed up.. I learned the different speeds of a horse.. Trots were a pain to time (where the horse seems to be coming up, while you are coming back down), but the Canter was great fun… Gave me a feel for the power in these horses.. Gave me much more respect for the cowboys on western flicks..
This pic gives you an idea of the rock faces we were riding on top of.. And of course the amazing view..(Golden Bay is to the right)
I just wished Michelle’s horse was as fun as mine, but hers was a bit of a pain, and she had a hard time getting him to put effort into the trip. Lesson: Don’t tell them your partner is experienced – the experienced person gets a horse that’s hard to deal with!
Once we were back, Mish took a pic of the Old Man Rock.. We were basically riding along the top of the mountain you see below. The pic is taken from about where we started (I think it was the entrance to the riding place actually)
We drove for a bit along the Farwell Spit, but not all the way. Took a little walk on the beach, where there were hundreds of birds.. Geese, black swans, and all sorts of others..
The pic above is just a small area.. but as far as you could see up and down the beach, were swans and geese..
And King Fisher type looking ones..
After that, we headed back to Motueka for groceries and the night’s stay, as kayaking would be tomorrow’s adventure, and it started in Motueka in the morning!
