Visiting seal colony's & roadtripping back to Auckland

Friday 23^nd January

As most days we slept in and didn’t leave the hostel before noon. We then visited the Bluff in the very south before we continued our journey on the southern scenic highway. We drove towards Catlins coastal native forests, high cliffs and golden beaches. Catlins coast is off the beaten track but home to an incredible marine life; fur seals (often mistakenly called sea lions) and penguins are regular beach visitors, while the more rare Hector dolphins can be spotted in the shallow waters. 

At Waipapa Point we experienced fur seals up close as they were sleeping on the beach. One of them felt harassed by a younger tourist, and chased him away by getting up and snapping at him.. He was obviously getting too close to the tired fur seal, who was taking a nab after fish hunting. 

We visited Curio Bay afterwards, but didn’t spot any marine life there. We didn’t want to stress through the area, so we found our camp spot near Papatowai and close to other attractions that we would explore the following day. We happened to meet a Danish couple in the early 60’s, and started chatting with them. 

They were just about to eat a Danish traditional dinner (hakker bøffer med bløde løg og kartofler) but had too much food, so to our big luck they invited us to join the. We were thrilled and honoured to get such a great offer, and off cause we joined them. It was a moment of weakness and discipline when we were offered red wine... And I am happy to announce that Erik succumbed under the pressure while I’m still going strong on my one month without alcohol. 

Some serious seaweed

There's more than 20 sheeps to 1 human on the south island

Saturday 24^th January

We are actually quite comfortable in our tent and we sleep in most of the days. It seems like we are the last ones out of bed/tent each day wherever we camp, and since we aren’t in a hurry it doesn’t matter to us. We started driving on a dirt road to Purakaunui falls, which is amongst one of the most photographed waterfalls in New Zealand, and found on various postcards, calendars and book covers. 

A short walk from Surat Bay, we visited Jack’s Blowhole, a hole on 55m located 200m from the sea, it was formed when a large section of a subterranean caves, gave after and fell down to the sea. It was hard to see down in the big dark hole, and we had expected the blowhole to be pushing the water up like a fountain, so we left a bit disappointed by the big black hole. 

Next stop was at Nugget Point, there we expected to see all the aforementioned marine life, our only problem was that we didn’t have binoculars and from the viewing platform behind the lighthouse, they were quite difficult to see without a set of binoculars. 

Back on the road Erik got hungry and for once I let him go to the a supermarket by himself, as I was sooo tired I couldn’t get out of the car. Erik came back with two Magnum ice creams, again he had failed our mission (eating healthy). But I couldn’t say no to that, so as two happy children we sat in the car and consumed our ice creams faster than ever. 

In Dunedin we only spend a short period of time, by using free wifi outside the library. We took the windy and long road out to the tip of Otago Peninsula. The coastline is home to a colony of the world’s rarest penguins (the yellow-eyed penguin), a breeding colony for Albatross and frequently visited by New Zealand’s fur seals. We saw loads of seals and they were definitely use to humans walking around them and taking pictures. There was a restricted area to them as well, so if they didn’t want us to approach them they were free to swim away, but most of them didn’t seem to care about our presence. We saw albatross far away in the restricted area, but sadly no penguins was in the mood to greet us. 

We drove straight to a camp ground north of Dunedin where we had a wrap before going to bed. Wraps is the new black for us!

 Purakaunui falls

 Nugget Point

 New buddies

Sunday 25^th January

Lake Tekapo was today’s destination. So we took a turn away from the coast and into the land again. 

On the way we passed by a salmon farm and hand fed the huge salmons in the pond, then we decided to buy half a salmon in the shop, to treat our taste buds for dinner later. Nearby we stopped at Lake Ruataniwha, a stunning crystal clear blue lake, the water was very inviting so we dipped our over-heated bodies in it. 

When we later reached Lake Tekapo we knew that we could camp at at YHA hostel. YHA are the most luxurious hostels you can find and their facilities are always better than anywhere else. We paid $40 (200kr) for pitching our tent in the front yard with great views over the lake. A bit overpriced, but it was actually one of the only options we had. The other hostels we rang, were fully booked the next few days. 

We checked out the little township, before we buried ourselves in our laptops in the hostels lounge room, that to our luck, overlooked the nice lake. We convinced ourselves that it was all right not to see and explore things in Lake Tekapo, we felt a bit fed up with adventures, and just needed to unplug ourselves and recharge for a few days. 

While the sun coloured the sky in pink and purple rainbow colours, Erik went for a challenging run up a mountain, he got lost and had been running on very steep parts without other than the sheep’s paths to follow. In the end he was back on track, and it had almost become dark before he returned to the hostel, exhausted and wet of sweat. Just before midnight I treated us with an oven-baked salmon in vegetables and pasta, the latest and greatest dinner in history. 

 Lake Ruataniwha

 Lake Pukaki

 Ridiculously expensive food.. 37,45kr per kg

39,45 kr. for a pack with 10 plums

Monday 26^th January

After I also got lost while running, we named Tekapo the place of confusion. It shouldn’t be possible to get lost in that little town but yet, we both manage to do so within 24 hours. We were really taking advantage over the free wifi this day, and we got a lot of work done - actually we didn’t do anything else than working and catching up this day. The blog can really be a time killer when we get too far behind, and it bugs us so much that we just need to get it over with and out of our heads. 

Lake Tekapo

Tuesday 27^th January

After another pleasant night in our tent we left Lake Tekapo. The weather became more and more unstable, the closer we got to Christchurch, but we were spared for the rain. We didn’t expect a lot from Christchurch, but decided to stop by and have a look around the earthquake damaged town. 

After spending a good amount of time navigating through the countless one-way streets and roadworks, we finally found a car park. We walked around town for a couple of hours, and were surprised that the town was still looking like the 2011 earthquake hit yesterday - it seemed like all the rebuilding of the damaged buildings had stopped totally, so the overall feeling wasn’t good at all, it felt like walking around in a big construction site. 

The only two good things about our visit, was that the I-sit booked a hostel for us in Kaikoura for Wednesday and Thursday. The other was our stop in a very special shopping street, where all the stores were build out of old, but colourful, shipping containers - here we got one of the best burgers we’ve had in a long time... It’s definitely not hard to get a burger in NZ (or Australia), you can get that everywhere, but getting a good burger, is a whole other story! 

We camped north of Kaikoura (Puhi Puhi Reserve) and by coincidence we camped close the Danish couple from the other night, so we catch up with them before going to bed.

  At Chrischurch's eartquake safe mall...  BNZ Bank

 Church in the city centre, destoyed by the eartquake

 Tourist tram 

We were suppose to camp in the forest, but jumped straight to plan B after seeing this.

Wednesday 28^th January

While Erik started the day with a 12 km. jog, I came to the conclusion that Australia had made a bigger impression on me than this green lush country. NZ has a little bit of everything, golden sand beaches, volcanoes, mountains, hot summer, cold winters. But it doesn’t beat the feeling of being in the isolated, empty, hot and death inviting outback. 

Here we have spend a lot of time driving towards something, that according to the brochures should be special, but frankly half of the places isn’t worth spending time on... But because we have a car we have felt guilty for not driving towards an so-called attraction, and half of the times it hasn’t been worth driving for. There’s so many walks here and they make every single walk sound so fantastic in the brochures but when you get out there, it’s nothing magnificent. We have done a few really great walks, but a lot of the walks around is blown up to be more special than they are. 

We often talk about how lucky we are to be able to travel for this long, but it’s not just a bed of red roses... Our biggest issue is that we don’t really appreciate our way of living any longer, it has become a daily routine to travel and see new stuff each day. Tourists are getting more value for their money than we are, and when they get home they have time to process all the impressions and experiences. I don’t even think we process our adventures any more, we just see, experience and take pictures, and let it all accumulates somewhere. It feels like we have hit a wall, tired of travelling... But we are both sure that when we get rid of the car in Auckland, we will get new energy again. We argue a lot more when we have a car, and off course that’s got some influence on the energy too. But just to be clear, we are not ready to return home either. That would just be a even bigger wall to hit. 

Well, in Kaikoura we shared room with four lazy and messy Swedish girls, their stuff was spread all over the room. We couldn’t even see which beds that wasn’t occupied. Surprisingly they had travelled for a while as well, but still didn’t manage to hide their valuables, which we found very naive and stupid of them. The day went by with a stroll in town and our heads buried in our laptops.

More expensive food... 50kr for just 800g.

Lime prices are freaking crazy.. 200kr per kg.

Thursday 29^th January

Kaikoura is known for world class whale watching, plus swimming with seals and dolphins. We had a look on prices, and in our stage of mind we were afraid to get disappointed for the high price we would have to pay. We were more than happy with our whale watching tour in OZ, and we know ourselves good enough to say that we would compare the two tours, and then there would be a slightly possibility for disappointment, as we were really lucky back then. So we decided to save the money! Instead we used our valuable time on a spin to the seal colony, just 5km out of town. That was the most active we were all day. We were watching a guy in his early 20’s, who aimed to pet one of the fur seals while it was resting on the rocks. We both wished that the seal would bite him, as you are obviously not suppose to harass them in their environment. Luckily the seal ‘walked’ away before the guy had collected enough courage to pet it. Stupid people!

We had to be careful not to step on one of the many seals.. There's six on this picture!

Friday 30^th January

We were happy that we had decided to get up early for a 11km. morning jog, as the Swedish girls were checking out at 10am as well, but apparently hadn’t used forward thinking the night before, so they hadn’t packed a single thing of their stuff, which resulted in them getting up really early and starting to mess around. Luckily for them we were getting up anyway! 

It was a weird day because after we checked out we had no plans for the day, we were basically just waiting for the ferry the next morning. We drove up to Picton and pitched our tent on a DOC camp, then drove back to Picton to sneak into a hostel and heat up our leftovers from last nights dinner. 

The day seemed ridiculous long. And the upcoming days would be much alike this, as we didn’t have a lot of plans, apart from driving back to Auckland of course. We were actually just waiting for Wednesday to arrive, so we could leave this expensive country and get back to Asia where we would get more value of our money.

Last NZ video

Saturday 31^st January

We crossed the Cook Strait to the north island and again we were lucky to hit the sea on a calm day. 

In Wellington we had arranged to meet up for lunch with Tom (Sam’s brother) and his boyfriend Adam (who we spend christmas with). They are such a delightful and easy going couple. We had our first beer in 30 days during lunch, and I was disappointed not to feel tipsy after 500ml. of beer. 

Anyway it was awesome seeing and catching up with them. As we told them we were heading north, Tom suggested us to go and see his mom in Levin, he ensured us she would love seeing and hosting us again, so when we left Wellington in the afternoon we drove straight up to Vivienne and Simon. The three adopted children that we didn’t meet last time was home this time. The youngest just turned 1, then there’s Brax nearly 3 and Georgia on 5. All lovely kids! 

Before we realized what was going on, Viv had made us dinner, which we didn’t expect at all. That women is simply amazing, I would kill to get half of her energy, hospitality and her big hearted personality. Soon Simon came home with the two older children, and a box of beers. We were on it again! The night was spend in their lovely company. It's a shame that we didn't take any pictures while we were there.

The boss, Tom, Adam and the slave...

Sunday 1^st February

Not only have Iben recently announced that she is coming down to see and travel with us, but this morning while skyping with Jette, she announced her intentions about visiting us as well. All of a sudden it felt overwhelming with all our future visitors. Jette is planning to meet us in Thailand in beginning of March, and as I may have mentioned before Iben is meeting up with us on Wednesday on Bali, Indonesia. 

We have been looking forward to her visit for a while now, and the excitement is only getting bigger as the days goes by. 

Time was flying in the morning and it was noon before we went to see Viv & Co. While I played cards with Viv and the kids, Erik fixed two attachment straps to my camera caps, and something with the car, then we waved goodbye to our second family, and drove north in the pouring rain. 

We planned to see the west coast on our way to Auckland, the west is a mecca for surfers, which has given the highway its name ( The Surf Highway), but frankly we didn’t even bother driving to the beaches to check what was happening, as the rain literally poured down most of the day. 

At our destination point New Plymouth, the lady at the I-site rang the hostels and checked availability, facilities, wifi etc. for us. Our pick was Duck & Drakes hotel, a surprisingly charming, clean and well decorated hotel/hostel. We got our own room for $64 (320kr), but only because the owner was in a good mood, usually it would be more expensive. The day went by indoor as the weather didn’t allow us to do any outdoor activities, unless we wanted to get soaked. 

Monday 2^nd February  

Weather hadn’t improved over night, so after giving some advices to a sweet german couple on the hostel, we started our drive towards Auckland. The rain was poring down, making it very dangerous to drive more then 40-50 km/h. We went out and had a look at a very small but popular surf town called Raglan, here we got to see the sun again, and we had our dinner wraps before leaving again for the last leg of our NZ roadtrip. We arrived at Lisa & Sam’s around 8.30pm, and while I carried all our stuff inside, Erik went to buy a box of beers. We had a couple of beers while catching up with L & S.

Tuesday 3^rd February

During the day we arranged all of our stuff, threw a lot of it out, both had a warm and exhausting run along the bays, and we prepared us for backpacking in Asia again. We had invited Sam & Lisa out for dinner in the sky tower at night, which turns 360 degrees every hour, so we had a stunning panoramic look over the city. The food were amazing and so was the sunset. It was a perfect ending of our journey in New Zealand. Back in Mission Bay we finished off with a few more beers before we hit the bed around 1am.

 The boys are punishing the arcade machine

Wednesday 4^th February

Our alarm woke us up a at 4.45am, we had arranged a cab to the airport by 5.15am. We were tired, but at the same time deadly excited to leave and meet up with a familiar face on Bali. All though there were quite a good amount of turbulence we made it safe to Sydney.. I feel like I have a big hole in my stomach whenever we fly in turbulence, I really hate it. In Sydney we had 6½ hour layover before our flight to Bali would departure. 

So long New Zealand.....