Onuku Heights Akaroa

... a little town near Christchurch that wants to be French which is nearly as weird as plastic pants. I could look up why and then it would be less weird but you know some weirdness is a good thing, (even plastic pants have there place) and I’m a firm believer that often ignorance is bliss.
Here a few things that have happened and amused me firstly some one fell over, I mean this isn’t always funny because people get hurt and ...

I'm about ready to loosen my tight grip on my faithful hot water bottle and learn to once again relax in the vehicle without fear of being plowed over by some crazy Kiwi driver on the side of a mountain, In a week we'll be back in Canada and back to the lovely summer that we've been mising out on. The trip has been amazing but we're ready to come back to faces that we recognize. Thank you all for faithfully reading my ramblings about our adventure and we can't wait to see you all soon!

... t look like a sweaty, stressed out drug mule. Outside and I call the son to meet us with the wagon in the car park. As I walk by the empty bus & taxi area, I observe 2 guys pushing their backpacks quickly into a Subaru whilst the driver kept the car running. The huge, ugly, female, parking Nazi rushed over to the otherwise empty section of the pickup area and shouted at them to remove their bags from the car and meet the driver in the car park 30 metres over. This meant the driver ...

... we were at the pay booth, where we were given information sheets and directions to the visitor's centre. so we'd met a couple in coober pedy who'd told us that we could easily spend a day in the centre, learning about the aboriginals, but really, after a short stroll around the centre, which was very informative and interesting, i have to say i don't know how anyone could spend a day in there, when surely you've paid to go see the real sites of the park - the olgas and ...

... have fun, the first part of the cave required chest deep wading through the stream which then went to calf deep for the most of it. The cave had high ceilings from centuries of the stream carving its way through the limestone. The cave was only 580 meters long and took us 45 minutes. The last part of the cave required a climb over several waterfalls past a swimming pool, then up a steep ladder, and one good belly crawl for 2 meters to get out. Yesterday we went to Christchurch with ...

Today, I had a tough decision to make between going surfing or sea kayaking, but I chose sea kayaking since I have never kayaked before. We traveled to Akaroa which was about a 2 hour drive; it is a harbor village with a French flavor. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy, windy, and a little rainy, but 5 other people and I decided to kayak anyway (out of 4 vans of people). We didn't kayak for long since the waves were ...

... and some ok scenery. During a short break I had a couple of people stop and ask if I was ok - kiwis really are a great bunch & I'm sure I could have hitched all the way to Akaroa even really late without problems. But with the bike I couldn't take the offer of a lift up. Nighttime came. By now I was getting pretty tired but was pushing on through - on the very poor scale map I had I was maybe 15km from Akaroa. I stopped to take some star photo's (very ...

Hi there, Since our time at the Truffle farm at Te Puke on the North Island of New Zealand, we travelled south to Lake Taupo to recover for a couple of days. We stayed at a motel there across from the lake and did a lot of reading. My skin has not seen this much sun since I was small, I'm sure. Apparently, there is a hole in the ozone over New Zealand and this makes the sun here much stronger and people get bad burns here easliy. Like Kris and I, for instance. Since our stay ...

... option when traveling. They also have a reputation as attracting partiers. However, as I would discover, very little partying is apparently done in New Zealand on New Year's Day. After getting set up, I walked Christchurch on foot. Christchurch's primary tourist attraction is a large Anglican Catherdral on a large square. My hostel was in a perfect location, on the Cathedral Square, which is the main center of town. There is a tram that ...

... get at this girls fish and chips but one of the gulls was shouting (squawking???) at them to get back. It was like he was in charge and he had his bird (literally) beside him not saying (squawking???) a word (squawk???) but equally in charge. It was like the couple in Pulp Fiction. Anyone of you mother f*#ker$ move and I'll execute every mother f*#king last one of you. I called it "Gull Fiction". Fiona ...