First Road Trip

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Julie and I decided to figure out how to drive here (finally). I'm so glad we finally did it because I had the best weekend. We managed to see all the highlights of the north east side of the island. We can't wait to do it again!

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Photos

Rental car
The lady at the rental car place was a little nervous about our driving capabilities, but so were we!

Tunnel
Why drive around the mountain when you can drive through it?

The Store
I guess a store can constitute an entire town. this really was the only thing in the town.

Bridge
This was a bridge on the state highway.

Nelson Beach
This was our first stop of our roadtrip.

Nelson
I was in front of a church with views of the city down below.

Kayaking
I got to kayak out to a seal colony in abel tasman national park. We had seals swimming all around us. They would come right up to the kayak and check you out.

Abel Tasman National Park
We kayaked for six hours around the park. I couldn't move the next day, but it was worth every minute.

Lunch Stop
Our guide gave us a lunch break on this beach. It was cool to get to be on a beach that was only accessable by kayak

Anchorage Bay
When we were finally done, we got to lay in the sun for awhile before the water taxi came to pick us up.

Blenheim
This little town was our third stop of our road trip. The only thing this town is known for is it's wineries. There are 50 of them in the area.

First stop on the wine tour
Decided to steal the half day wine tour stops. This was at our first stop. cool place, their dog just made herself at home at my feet the entire time we were there.

Stop #3
Well, we were supposed to go to 4 wineries and a choclate factory, but by the third winery we decided to eat lunch and call it good. We didn't think it would be good to drink and drive since driving on the opposite side of the road was still a bit unsettling.

Kaikoura
Nothing really happening in this town, so we just took a pic and decided to head towards home....

A little side trip
But, we decided we weren't ready to go home yet, so we headed towards Hamner Springs instead. Instant gratification! This mountain drive was the prettiest views I've seen in NZ

Mountain Graveyard
We saw a sign for the Doone's Graveyard and just had to stop. We walked up well kept steps to find one grave. Alice was 22 months when she died in 1892. Creepy!!!

Cemetary
Well, we figured if we went to three wineries, we might as well go to three cemetaries too. Unfortunately, it was pitch black. The Hamner Springs one was in the Hamner Forest. Fortunately, the gate was closed.

Cemetary #3
I tried to tell Julie that it might be a bad idea to be doing this with a full moon. This cemetary was down a one lane gravel road in the middle of nowhere.

Double Dare
You can't turn away from a double dare. As soon as she was done, I jumped up as fast as I could.

Hamner Springs
This was our last stop of the road trip. Very relaxing.

Comments

[Aunt Char]

Grave nothing -
The grave is nothing, the single lane bridge for as far as you can see is too much to me. The pictures are great. Seals, dolphins, pengiuns, wineries, . . . I wish I was there.