New Zealand

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The cheapest way to travel around the country was to rent a camper van because that takes care of our accomodation and its our transportation. so we rented a "wicked"camper van. its a normal van that was converted into a camper van for backpackers. its not very spacious or nice but it works. every camper van that they own has different things on them. ours is the "elvis van" so it has pictures of elvis on it. the van is very handy because you can pull over when ever you want to make some pasta, soup or a grilled cheese sandwich. the hard part is finding public showers! i would also like to say that highways in new zealand are terrible. they wind and go up and down most of the time you cant go above 50km, they also dont have guard rails doesnt matter how steep the cliff right beside you is. we also have to drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. hahah when ever we turn a corner cody puts on the wind shield wippers instead of the signal light. so funny. i dont make that mistake half as often.

christchurch is where we flew into and spent the first couple days of our trip. we spent alot of time at the botanical gardens feeding ducks and their ducklings. on the third day we found a mommy duck that had 25 baby ducks!!! they were all so cute. the mom didnt like it very much when i would pick one up though. after we ran out of bread i picked one up and started to walk away ( just as a joke of course) well the mom didnt like that at all she started to fly at me while squaking, i was so so scared. cody thought it was halarious. we also went to a museum, an art gallery and some other things that i cant remember right now hehe

on the way to kaikoura we found a seal colony on rocks by the ocean so we hopped out of the car to get a better look. they looked freindly from far but as you got closer they werent so nice, it was like they were yelling at us in deep voices. they can move pretty fast accross the rocks.

In picton we went mountain biking up a mountain which was fun but very hard. the track was for experienced bikers. so naturally i fell off the side of the trail into a bush and cut my leg. I didnt feel so bad after cody fell, he got a bunch of slivers in his hand.

Abel tasman is a beautiful national park. we did some hikes and some sea kayaking. sea kayaking was lots of fun because we had to wear the skirt thing that keeps the water out of your kayak. the water was a nice green color and the rocks and cliffs next to the waters edge were very pretty.

then we went to punakaiki to see "pancake rocks and blow holes" i didnt think the rocks looked like pancakes, to me they looked like normal rocks with little grooves in the sides. it was still pretty.

so we are half way done our trip in NZ so i will update my blog again in about a week. i'm sorry i havent been writing as many entries lately but internet is very expensive and i dont have the time!

hope everyone is doing alright in Edmonton or wherever you are!
Emily

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