Off to Kaikoura
Trip Start
Feb 24, 2008
1
9
17
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
New Zealand,
New Zealand
Thursday, March 13, 2008
But anyways.We caught a bus leaving Queenstown at 7am...who knew that there was such a time. Kidding. The bus was fine aside from the terrible lady who sat in front of us. She was such a snob who kept ramming her seat into Amanda'a knees and she had whiskers....almost a full beard!!! Because of her grumpy attitude topped with goolish looks we have knited her Troll Thing. It was going to be Troll Lady but we didn't think that she passed as a lady. Once we arrived in Christchurch we had a brief stop over until getting onto another bus heading to Kaikoura. Troll Thing was also on this one however she didn't sit by us. But have no fear! This trip was even more entertaining. This couple that sat across the isle and one row up from us made out for the first half of the trip. Well...we hope that that's all they did. We were sad that we didn't have popcorn but you can't ask for everything. Anyways...about half way through the trip the guy ended up getting road sickness. Now this isn't just any ordinary road sickness. He was fully vomitting in a bag but the worst part was his spitting after. EEWWWWW. It was nasty...but atleast it didn't stink!
Once we finally arrived in Kaikoura we immediately set out to find a hostel. We ended up at a really nice one that we had to pay a bit extra for as they only had one of their suites left. It was nice. This hostel was crazy though. They had a huge pool, a hot tub, a giant deck and mini restaurant. We had one of the best stirfry's of our lives and it was cheap. It was a easy night that we spent chillin in the room just watching some tv before heading to bed. Soo wifeswap...if you don't watch it...you should! It was intense!
The next day we got up early in hopes that we would be able to go on the dolphin swim that we were on the waiting list for. Unfortunately everyone showed so we didn't get to go but we decided to go on the seal swim instead. We are soo glad that we did though! Not only was this one cheaper but apparentely there are only 6 total areas in the world that you can get so close to the seals. We were able to swim with the seals around Kaikoura because they don't have any natural predators. They think that the reason sharks don't enter the area is due to the large amount of dolphins. Anyways, we headed straight to the shop we leave from and chilled there till we went on the swim. Here Amanda ended up almost chopping part of her finger off with a wine opener...didn't your mom ever teach you not to play with things that aren't yours. Haha nah, it was nothing that bad. Eventually they loaded us onto a bus, everyone in wet suites, drove us for about 15 minutes and told us all about the New Zealand fur seals. Interesting point: the fur seal is more closely related to dogs then other seals!
This was such an incredible experience and we were super lucky. Firstly, while we are on the boat to the dive spot the dolphins went off course and came to play with boat! That was awsome as we got to see the dolphins and the seals for the price of one! Secondly, we had a small group which allowed everyone more personal interactions with the seals! Once we were in the water, it wasn't that much fun as the seals were all on land. But eventually there was sooo many of them in the water! It was crazy, they would come right up to you! You thought that they were going to headbutt you but then in the last second they would dive under you! We weren't allowed to touch them but it was still sooo incredible!
After the dive we went out for lunch. We did not have a good experience with this. The food was so bad. Kailey's naucho's were a disgrace to the naucho world! But our afternoon perked up when a bunch of the locals told us that we had to go to a giant party that night. Apparently we managed to come on one of their biggest nights of the year. They have a bunch of New Zealand bands come to play and everybody goes. So we got tickets to that which thankfully were pretty cheap. After that we went to find a new hostel that was cheaper and we ended up at a place called The Lazy Shag. Ha, what a name. We were very lucky, we arrived just as a room got cancelled. We had to pay for a suite again but it actually ended up being cheaper for us. The hostel rooms were a dollar cheaper but then you had to pay 2 dollars for a blanket which ours came with. Haha suckers. This was a great hostel. When were making dinner we ended running into some Canadians that we had met at the Hokitika Wild Food Festival. Random hey! Talking to them we met some more Canadians, some Americans and a Dutch girl that we convinced to come to the concert that night. After dinner we all headed to the party. What a blast. Kailey was on a mission to get on stage...and she sure did! We just spent the night dancing up a storm and then ended up partying for a bit with the band. We ended up ditching out when everyone was gunna go to a locals house to party. We weren't down with going to some random house when we had no idea where we were. So we just went home like good little rockstars!
