The South Island - Untouched

Were now in the South Island, after taking the ferry across The Cook Straits on Monday morning from Wellington to Picton.

Wellington is a funny little place, to say it is The Capital City of New Zealand it is another very quiet City. We went in on Saturday on the bus, it took about 30 minutes and was a great drive along the harbour with the Sky Line (such as it is) in the distance. We expected it to be quite busy with it being Saturday but when we started wandering round it became apparent that Wellington was less busier than Auckland, which is really weird. If you go into London on any day of the week there is such a buzz, with lots of hustle and bustle. There is no barging around with people bumping into you, it's just all really civilised and laid back. It takes some getting used to!!

We're still using the Lonely Planet as our guide, so on their recommendation we headed down to Courtenay Place which is where "it's all at" in Wellington. There are lots of English style pubs and Asian restaurants, cinemas, shops etc. We were ambling along when we saw a sign outside an Indian which read "All you can eat buffet $10 each". Matt was in through the door and onto his first plate before I had even finished reading the advert! It was a bargain, especially when you're on a (kind of) budget and trying to watch what you spend. We bounced out of there about 90 minutes later, not caring if we never ate Indian food again :-)

The South Island is like being in another country compared to the North. On Monday we drove to Kaikoura from the ferry in Picton, and then yesterday we left Kaikoura and are now in Christchurch. In the time that we have been on the road we cant have passed more than 50 cars maximum. There are practically no houses, only farms, and we have passed field after field full of Sheep! It is certainly safe to say that since being in the South we have encountered more sheep than people. There are millions of them, all with little lambs too frolicking in the fields. I said to Matt yesterday it's not a bad life being an animal, all you have to do is eat, drink and sleep all day, and the only thing that is expected of you is to gain weight. What could be better, my three favourite things and no weight worries. Bliss!!!

In Kaikoura we went on a whale watching tour off the East Coast, it is a place that is visited for this particular reason. It was an amazing tour and we actually managed to see 3 sperm whales, it was fascinating. The only thing neither of us enjoyed was the boat ride. We had to go out 13 miles to see the Whales and the sea was reportedly quite choppy that day. What an understatement, on the way there we were almost lifted out of our seats as we bounced off the waves, then once we spotted the whales and had to hover around the boat was just bouncing about all over the place, so much so that Matt lost his Breakfast to the Pacific Ocean!!

It is normally expected to see one maybe 2 whales maximum, so for us to see three, we were very lucky. They are spotted by the water that they spray out, they then just float (even at that size and weight) on the surface, after about 5-10 minutes of this, they slightly raise themselves out of the water and flip their tail up in the air before going deep down into The Ocean for a monster feed. They eat the equivalent of 5.5 human beings a day!!! On the boat trip we watched a DVD and were given a talk about whales and their existence, they are truly amazing creatures and it was money well spent.

On the trip we got chatting to an English couple (Mike and Katie) who we had seen a few times on the North Island, and again on the ferry crossing, they asked us if we fancied going to the local pub quiz that night as they were sick of going to bed at 9pm (it's a common theme with campervanners) So that night we headed into "town" to the local, the streets were deserted apart from a few tumble weeds. The inside of the pub didn't appear to be much busier either, although it did soon liven up (by NZ standards) We named our team "The Britz on Tour" and the quiz began. Well I'm not the best at quizzes to be honest and our new found quiz enthusiasts were about the same, we came out of the 1st round with a mere 2 points! But what you have to understand is that we had 2 points more than anybody else!!! Oh yes, if we were bad the other teams were appalling ;o) The quiz went on for about 10 rounds, and every 2 rounds or so (we lost count) we were given a free Aftershock. We were in quite a sorry (and loud) state by the time the quiz ended. But, after much banter with the Kiwi Quiz master and his accomplice it turned out that we won the quiz quite convincingly and were rewarded with $50NZ to spend behind the bar. Result! NZ did beat England at cricket though while we were in the throes of quizzing, at least all was not lost ;-)

We are heading further South tomorrow for Dunedin, then we will probably start heading across country to Milford Sound, and then to the Adventure Capital of NZ, Queenstown. We have been a bit boring in NZ so far in that we haven't undertaken any extreme activities, yet!! I was a bit put off after my 1st attempt at Sand boarding, I did take a really bad tumble and was in pain for days as a result. So watch this space and see if one of us will attempt a tandem sky dive or a bungee!!