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Hey all, sorry about the delay. its been a little more then a week since my last post, but hopefully no one really noticed that....
Anywho, to bring everyone up to date:
Last sunday, May 24, i ended up breaking down and buying uggs. Its friggin cold here!!! If you check out a map, you'll see that NZ is located fairly close to Antartica, so i feel justified and that i havent utterly failed at the Canadian ability to become immune to certain types of cold. They are a dark brown colour, the middle size, and because they were hand made by the local workers, are only a size 8 (and yes, i do feel petite because of that). When you convert the price to Canadian dollars, their a steal, but a lot of things in christchurch were like that (unlike where i am right now, where even food is friggin expensive; double that of christchurch, which is a major pain as i do have to eat...). I also picked up some post cards, which both sets of grandparents should be recieving in about a week (so please no one ruin the surprise!).
After just chilling with
a french lady who i've talked to several times, who is the reason i remembered postcards and what they do (she was writing about 15 of them, to people back home). I've bene picking up about one per town, and have been or will be sending them off to people. SO, if people want a postcard, i need addresses (as i did not bring that extra book out with me). i already have a few, but the more the merrier, right? Anywho, after i chilled with this lady, i ended up going out to dinner with Courtney, a girl i met through my roomie first year, who come out here on exchange. We had a nice dinner, caught up, and then went out for a drink at a local pub, which had a pretty good beer. I finally got to meet her bf of over a year, and i would say after that night feel a lot closer to her. Its amazing how great you feel when you can meet up with someone and know the same people. Plus, the last time i saw her was not necessarily ideal...
On may 25, i talked to mom, chris and nicola.
It was nicolas birthday, and i felt pretty special that i got a call. Unfortunatly, we used up my phone minutes, and mom tried to call me back at least 28 times (i know this because every time she tried i got these really annoying text messages, saying the same thing to me, that i didnt have enough cash. I even shut off my phone because they were sooooo annoying. But i was glad to find out why i was getting them a few days later when we talked over fb). I also booked my dolphin encounter that day, as my roomie Helen (from england, who had been travelling for 5 1/2 months and was on her way home) told me that it was a really neat experience. As i had already booked the Magic Bus, a hop on hope off bus, i had a way to get there. So i got very excited for it.
That night there was a local school group, who had traveled to christchurch for a leadership conference. they were staying one night, to see what an international hostel was like, and they had prepared questions ahead of time to ask us 'international travelers.'
There was one boy Elric who i talked to, while i was cleaning my dinner dishes, and he got all excited to meet a Canadian. He even forgot most of his questions, and you could see one of his teacher mouthing them to him. They seemed all really excited, and because they were only there one night, the female teacher offered me their ice cream, as they hadnt been able to eat it all. Pretty much immediatly after getting them, i slapped helens name on them (she was the one who was going to be there longest), and she ran to get Noelle, one of our other roomies (she replaced to onterio girl who was here when i arrived). Shes irish, and well on her way to being a pediatrition. It was the three of us sitting around these two tubs of ice cream, cookies and cream and strawberry swirl, and when we saw these kids coming back we started to eat faster, in case they wanted to ask for it back. They just wanted to ask us some additional questions before they headed off to bed, which we were more then happy to answer (as long as we got
to keep the icecream).
Our other roomie at the time had replaced a girl from holland. she had origionally come from England, but had immigrated to calgary and then to toronto. She fermented wine, and was bringing a large case back with her from work. we got on really well, but she wasnt a big fan of the other two, as they were noisy late at night. She left the same day i did, the 27th, her getting on a plane and me on the Magic bus. the night before i had found out that Noelle was going to kaikoura, where i was spending at least 2 days (turned into 4 as i loved it sooo much there). I had been told the bus would arrive at 8:30, but it got there at 8:05, so i was glad when i had packed everything beforehand and woken up early. i was straigtening something out with frontdesk when it arrived, so i was the last one on the bus. But the driver andy was very cute (and very cute), with a fairly decent taste in music. I met a traveling family of americans on the bus, who thought i had a
cute accent. They were all suffering from motion sickness, which sucked, and the old guy keith (who had been pretty creepy to Helen as well) was sitting in front of me, trying his best to set me up with this random French guy across the isle named Thomas. i pretended to be asleep.
I got to kaikoura, which is a little log cabin with the ocean as its front yard, so i dropped my stuff, and walked about 20 minutes into town (as thats how long it took to get there). i found out where most of the major things were, helped out a girls collage class by answering their questionnaires, going into a shell-stone jewerly store, and drolling in a surfshop. They had some really nice used boards, and even some new ones, at really good prices. Since its only about $30 to get there both ways on the bus in christchurch, i might go back and get one. The waves here are different, breaking a lot closer to the shore, which makes it harder for a newbie like me to try it. UNless you have a car or can bum a ride off someone, surfing in kaikoura
unless as a pro was very hard. i unfortunatly didnt get to go out and give it a try. Most of the store owners there were really nice, and food was still pretty cheap (those were the days).
on the 27, i woke up early and walked down to the Dolphin encounter building (carefully scouted out the day before), for my 8:30am time. There was myself, a women from the netherlands, a sweedish couple, and a guy from the Czech republic (we were all on the same boat, which i have dubbed the international boat for obvious reasons), and thena bus load of american uni kids here on a three week summer course on eco sustainability. It was about 13 people per boat, and once we had all gotten suited up in full body wet suits (which are apparently full body floating aparatus), watched a 15 minute saftey movie, we all moved to the bus which drove us down to the docks where we boarded the boats. There was a girl named Sarah was got seasick, and seeing as how everyone else was huddling inside the cabin and we were at the back, i tried to take her mind
off it. I think it helped, as she didnt throw up, and the guy who was telling us all about the wildlife gave us this blanket because it was chilly (but the wetsuits heated up pretty quick after we put them on, so i was sweating). I asked him a lot of questions, about the different birds (he is now looking up info because we got into a good convo, and he didnt know what a grebeb was or some of the local animal life), the tides here, the mussle boy-colony which we brought on board our vessel and then had to throw back. We never did get to swim with the dolphins, unfortunatly, but we did find them in murkey/dirty water (which is why we couldnt go in), but they did play at the bow of the ship, and we chased them around for about 45 mins. i got to know which settings on my camera are good for taking their pics, and i would for sure do something like that again. another boat saw sperm whales, which are common in the area, and apparently twice a month orcas pass through the areas.
After the dolphin thing, i
went over to a limestone cave, which was only a half an hour walk along the highway, and seeing as how i had a lot of energy left, i had a pretty great time. When i got there, i was met by a larger fellow, who said we couldnt go in just yet because the took fairy was having a cup of tea (i questioned if i wanted to go into a cave with this guy for about two seconds, then just shrugged that off and followed him around with my camera). He showed the the limestone cliffs, and the blasting which had been done to get limestone which was later used for fertilizer, and where they punched through into the cave system. Once i had a hard hat of my own (it was white!) we got to go in, once the electricity was turned on. He showed me flint which had formed in a circle, which is apparentl very rare, and i was shown a ton of calcite, which mixing with iron along the walls becomes straws, or drips to the floor and becomes a ton of different things. i learned so much in that cave, and got to
see an urchin fossel which was neat. there were also cave perals (when calcite drops into pools of water, and are tumbled and look just like little perals), cave coral, and a ton of stuff like that. i thought it was pretty neat, and definatly worht $12. there was even a little cave at the end, with some human teeth (which were donated by the local dentist), and a pair of shoes, which he told kids belonged to the tooth fairy. He had this nwhole little sotry of that the kiddies would be entertained and have something to look forward to. I got to touch one piece of calcite, the only piece in the whole cave your allowed to touch as the acid from our skin turns it black. On the way back from there, i decided to take a different way around, and met a local artist collecting driftwood from the beach. she told me how to find a path which would take me over the penusila, and once i found it i had a hike of about40 minutes to get back to town. it was a really lovely hike, starting at the beach, then into a heavily forested
area to fields and back to the other two.
I met this old guy as i was walking across the parkinglot of an old pub. I was going by and he was going in, and he yelled out a hello which i returned. we called a few things back and fourth, and when he asked where i was from and got my reply, he came up to me, shook my hand and said "god bless." i felt pretty special after that. That night Noelle had shown up at the hostel, and we were once again roomies (funny how that works eh?). Anywho, she brought with her an italian boy, and we had a movie night watching the Pianist and identity. the first was good, the second not so much.
on the 28th, i had a sea lion encounter. There is a sea lion colony not far from the hostel, maybe only a 45 min walk or so, so i decided that it would be a good way to spend part of my day. I decided to walk along the beach at low tide, where i found a lot of interesting things including a whole bone: that of a
flipper,mostly in tact. Kairkoura used to be a whaling warf, until they switched over to transportation and moved closer to the little town. It was really neat seeing everything from the beach, and the rocks changed due to their interactions with the waves and would be drastically over 15 feet or so. I got to see the inside of a sea urchin, when it dried and was split open (when they die and dry, their spikes fall off and they look odd). I was listening to my ipod to try and distract me from the smell of rotting kelp (there had been a ver large storm the pervious weekend, the size of which they only get once or twice a year), and a lot of stuff had been washed onto the beach as a consequence of it. If i had been paying more attention to where i was and less on what was next to my feet, i wouldnt have been as startled when i heard the bark.
After jumping and looking around, i saw that i was only about 2 feet away from a very large sea lion. As these things can run on land which seals just
kind of limp, i was a little scared. There were a lot more all around me too, being between 4-6 feet away. They all seemed to be sleeping, and one rolled over, looked right at me, probably decided i wasnt a threat and went back to sleep. one kept barking at me, and then striking the same pose, until i took its picture. once i had done that, it went right back to bed with an almost happy sigh. At this point, i just wanted to appreciate them from a distance, while almost everyone else had the opposite idea. i ended up having the brave a 3 foot long kelp wall and all the kelp flies it held. But in the end i was able to run along the rocks, peer into the tide pools and appreciate the sea lions from a nice, safe distance. That night Noelle, myself and a girl named Mary-kay from england enjopyed 4 free heinikins and some custard from a box. Theres a shelf both in the fridge and out labeled free food, and it has drastically reduced my spending. we watched love actually with a surfer dude, which was surprisingly dull.
on the
29th Noelle left for home. she'd been away for about 7 months traveling, and was excited about going back. Thats one thing i've noticed, i'm very much a newbie at this traveling thing.A lot of people who travel are at least 25or older, adn have been traveling for a year or just a little less. Theres something called an around the world ticket which a lot of them have. Stuff like that i just find interesting. I made a lasania that night, the first meat i'd had in quiet awhile, and got a good 40 minute long lecture by a chez guy about the evils of his country. this is going to sound odd, but he was so somber but thought all other countries must be loads better, that he seemed pretty childish. He seemed to not realise that all countries have problems, and theres not an ideal, perfect one out there. But i learned a lot of really interesting things, but i dont think ill go visit any time soon. Mary-kay and i watched View from the Top, which was a pretty decent chick flick, and then i called it a night to be productive and she watched and
recommended a movie called Ned kelly.
i got on an 8:30 bus the next day, which was about 25 minutes late. I was traveling with an irish girl and a british girl i had met the day before, and so we all sat next to one another on the bus. the bus had a traveling group of irish people, which was a pretty neat thing. we stopped at a place called Montana's for a free winetasting, which i guess is part of Magic or something. They kept giving us wine, and i discovered that i am not a big red wine fan. they had some really nice white wines though, and there was one made with limes which i thought was pretty good. Quiet a few people got on that bus a little intoxicated, and i will admit i was feeling no pain myself. I was the only one stopping at the YHA, so i got a speical stop all for me, and the driver upon lifting my bag made a joke about me being able to do all this crazy stuff becasue i'm canadian and we're hardy. I just smiled and took my bag, then staggered into the
hostel.
The hostel here is really small, and has the oddest office hours. I ended up waiting with a japanese girl down here for a year on a student working visa. we got along really well, and i ended up giving her my email and phone number, and poseing for a pic with her. she was waiting for a pick up from a friend, and shes over in nelson right now, which is my next stop. she wants to get together and do something, and i wouldnt mind. the hostel here is pretty ghetto, not only being small but one story with windows when open someone could drawl through.the receptionist is somewhat insane, very opinionated, and she decided that she really likes me. which works well for me. my roomie last night was an initally veyr quiet girl from korea, but after about 15 mins talking to me, she was no longer quiet. she poked me this morning to wake me up so she could say goodbye. shes traveling a similiar route as i am, so maybe we can meet up. theres an older british couple here who i met in Kairkoura, the lady being 66 and her husband
71, backpacking around and just enjoying life. i get along pretty well with both, and like i said earlier, its always nice to see a similiar face. The lady does watercolour paintings, and helped me make oatmeal in the microwave after all these years of getting the stuff you just add hot water to.
anywho, thats it right now. next stop is nelson, and hopefully everything will go as planned, and i might go skydiving there. i've heard really good things, and i only really want to go bunjee jumping in Queenstown, as everything there is expensive. as you head south here, stuff like that gets more expensive. So, fingers crossed and hope that everything is going well from everyone back home! Feel free to email, fb , or respond to this to tell me about all your adventures!
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Monica Coulson
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WOW!
Wow,wow,wow! You are so getting into this traveling mode! It sounds like you are having a blast! Of course everyone loves you - you are such a sweetheart! I am so proud of you for being so courageous and spreading all of that Canadian goodness around the globe! Keep a good address book of all the people you trade emails etc with - it may keep you busy traveling for years to come. Thanks for writing such descriptive blogs. Love you!