Chateau Blanc Suites Christchurch

... in the car (better judgment told us we’d die from the cold), sleep, wake up from my extreme neck ache (I was in a chair trying to ball up to keep warm). Finally, I woke up about 4:30A and found a couple beanbags in the corner of the room. At this point, it was pretty obvious we were a couple of bums crashing the hostel common room, so I figured what does it matter if we use a couple beanbags as blankets. And that is how the next hour went: Sleep under a beanbag; still with ...

... We stayed right next to the beach. As we got there, Jake and I almost tripped over what we thought was a black labrador, only to then realise it was a seal, from the local colony. The weather was pretty foul and whale watching was impossible due to the rain and fog, but on our second day the skies were perfect. We had decided to watch whales by helicopter as (a) you get to see all of the whale, not just a bit of its tail or body, (b) you get to see lots more, as ...

... the Huka falls which were gorgeous. Next stop was a town called Rotorua, it stinks here, due to the thermal hotpools, there is a constant sulphur smell. We only passed through there for a couple of hours.<br><br>After that we couldn't decide where we wanted to go, we kept looking at the map and striking a blank. We finally decided on a little town and the bottom end of the Coromandel Penninsular. It was a lovely little town with a harbour. Our ...

... nobody - but nobody - is to use our poopchute for the duration of the expedition or ye shall fear of personal injury from me, as I will never emptyeth that evil recepticle again. I'd rather do a 24hr stint in a mexican hospital during a dysentry epidemic. Day 5 - All through the journey, our mobile internet connection was deplorable, even though It showed high signal strength. It was slower than morse code, but still managed to chew $90 worth. We were going to invade Wanakalakes fort ...

... although we didn't have time for the Key Summit side trip...oh well. Of course when we got there all smelly and just wanting to go wash up there was a huge guided tour getting ready to go. Very very frustrating, but we were just happy to have made it off the Track without any rain. There we were picked up to go to Milford Sound, having walked since 8:00 AM whereas the rest of the bus had been sitting on a bus since 8:00 ...

... to the hotel and then went for a little walk. I found a little strip of restaurants with outdoor tables and I selected one called the Boulevard Restaurant. I ordered what I thought would be a tasty meal-the salmon and rock lobster combination. It was ok, but the portion size was tiny and there wasn't much lobster on the plate at all, maybe a couple of small chunks. So, I ordered a chocolate soufflé dessert. It was pretty good, but it took forever to come out ...

... across the saddle between two peaks - simply stunning. A breathtaking trek. After Tongariro we're heading along the 'forgotten world' highway to Taranaki. The vistas just keep getting better and if you're ever in NZ do this drive over a couple of days - words cannot do the scenery justice. However as we reach Taranaki the clouds have closed in and even though we're on the mountains flank we can't see the frikkin thing. We'd had better views of it a couple of days earlier from ...

... used in the Antarctic, but here we got to be passengers for a mud track. The abilities of this vehicle are quite amazing although I didn't pay attention to all of the commentary as we were flung around the hills and corners of the track. It can climb increadibly steep hills and lean at quite frightening angles, but finding out it could float and move in water was the icing on the cake! Having finished at the centre, we headed north to visit Kaikoura, on the hunt for whales...

... drove us down to 'the strip', a road near the Avon river with nice restaurants all along it, and the very kind waiter at the establishment we selected agreed to take our orders, despite us being only 1 minute earlier than their deadline!<br><br><br><br>The food was lovely, the Kiwi beer was tasty if not very strong (most of them are only about 4%), and we had a really great time catching up with them ...