#24 Kaikoura (Peninsula)

Are you serious?

The drive down to Kaikoura was a windy one. The coastline seems even more rugged when waves are crashing onto the rocks.

Kaikoura sunrise.

From photos I've seen, the mountains are even more stunning when snow-capped. I'm looking forward to winter.

I went to the point where the seal colony is. It was low tide so I walked across the rocks instead of on the road, because it's more fun. I didn't realize I was already there until I stepped up on to a rock and was about to jump down when I was barked at by a large, grumpy seal. I took off running the opposite direction. I hadn't seen him and would have hopped down right next to him.

Here's your sign:

10 meters? Try 2 feet. And who would try to move a seal?

The king admiring his kingdom. I just want to stick a crown on him. Made of seaweed and puau shells and little fish bones.

Kaikoura is at the base of a high cliff peninsula, which I walked around.

I just could not get enough of these cows.

For you, Aunt Kim.

I would like to say that I walked down there and back up, but I would be lying.

Nobody move!

Gotta love the New Zealand bridges. "Maximum load 1 person."

#23 Adios, isla norte

I spent a couple days in Wellington, which is a really great city. Reminds me a bit of San Francisco. Much better than Auckland. I didn't take a lot of pictures, because I spent most of the time in the museum. Te Papa is a fantastic museum. I learned about volcanoes. And moas, the big birds similar to ostriches that are now extinct. NZ used to be bird land. The only animals native to NZ are a bunch of birds and just 3 species of mammals, all of which are bats. And if you think about it, bats are kind of like birds anyway. I guess it was too far away for non-flying animals to swim. Or jump. At some point someone introduced sheep though. There are 40 million sheep here, 10x the amount of people. No one thought to bring over snakes or bears or mountain lions so there are none here.

I met up with my friend, Courtney, and realized the last time we'd seen each other was 3 years ago in Santa Barbara. This is us outside of Mac's Brewery in Wellington Harbor. That's me there on the left.

And this is me being a tiger.

From Wellington I took the 3 hour ferry ride to the south island. It was stormy, to say the least.



The boat was rockin and rollin. The frames hanging on the wall were swaying back and forth. Then the ship turned and the pictures started leaning forward then slamming back into the wall. I don't get sea sick, so it was kind of fun. But lots of other people were getting sick, so it kind of wasn't fun.

When we got to the bays leading into the south island it was calm and beautiful.



The ferry arrives into Picton.


And now I'm on the south island, yay!

#22 Rotorua

The last day trip I took on the north island was to Rotorua. Some friends were going paddling on the Kaituna River and Lawrance said he could get his hands on a double kayak and take me down the rapids. As much fun as it is being the shuttle bunny, as I am known, I had been wanting to go down the Kaituna since I first learned of the existence of the Topo Duo. I had been down the waterfall once before while rafting - the 7 meter one we flipped on.

Would you trust them to get you down that?
I was nervous about the boat flipping and being stuck under water, but we did some practice rolls up by the floodgates and I was surprised at how quickly Lawrance could roll us back over. We would be under for only a moment and he would flip us upright, almost as soon as we had gone over. We did that a few times and after that I was sweet to go.

Now I understand why these guys are so addicted to paddling waterfalls. It is really fun. And all I had to do was sit in the front and paddle when I was told to and Lawrance did all the work. The smaller falls had more of an impact because the boat we were in was pretty heavy and the water slams into the person sitting up front. We actually didn't even flip on the waterfall. So glad I got to do it.

After the river it was time for some serious action, so we went to the luge tracks.

Gentlemen, start your engines.

Of course it turned into a race and everyone was running each other off the road. I took some of the corners on two wheels and lost to Simon because he cheated and pulled on my brakes when I was passing him. Not that I didn't do the same.

We went way faster than this guy.

The lifts to get back up were painfully slow. We could have walked faster. And we couldn't take our helmets off.

View of Lake Rotorua from the lift.

View of the lake #2. Work it.

Aw.

#21 Hawke's Bay II

I went back to Hawke's Bay for a concert that I got tickets for back in January. Simon and I both got work off and I booked a campsite because it's cheaper and more fun to camp anyway. Once the day came it was pouring rain, naturally. The campsite was completely flooded so we found some elevated ground under two big pine trees. It took a while to set up the tent, not only because of the rain but because the wind kept blowing it away. I tried to get gumboots at The Warehouse, but not a single pair was left! Jerks.

We put on as much rain gear as possible and brought a tarp to use as a canopy.
Other concert-goers were much more experienced than us and had an entire shelter set up involving umbrellas, chairs, and tarps. The show was at a winery, so I picked up a bottle of wine and we ate cheese and crackers under the leaky tarp.

Knock knock.

When the show started we stopped trying to stay dry (we had failed anyway) and stood in the rain to watch. I have never been so soaking wet for so long at one time. When we got back to camp the inside of the tent was still dry. Amazing.

It was supposed to storm through Sunday, but the rain stopped sometime in the night and Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day. We met Lawrance and went to the aquarium, where I saw my first kiwi, which was way cooler than I thought I would be. They are funny birds. They don't seem too bright. They dig for bugs. Then run back and forth. Then dig, run, dig, run. No wonder they're endangered.

Lawrance & Simon being their charming selves. They, too, will be endangered soon for the same reasons as the kiwi.

Coast of Cape Kidnappers.

Trees living on the edge

Say hello to my little friend

At the point of the cape there is a gannett bird colony, which is why most people walk out there. But the walk got boring and I'm not into birds anyway, so we turned back early. I took off my shoes for the last part of the walk and proceeded to immediately step on a wasp stinger.

My new weight loss program.