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Published: November 10th 2007
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Everyone we met on the north island seemed to tell us that the south island was better. Well, we're one the south island now, but can't make that judgement yet.
Leaving Wellington went just fine. We got to the ferry early which meant we got to park close to the exiting side of the boat. It was fun to drive on and off a boat, but not really all that exciting. The ride itself was 3 hours on the boat and we got in on some pretty cool views leaving Wellington and some nice stuff (including dolphins from a distance) coming into the south island. We stayed in Picton for our first 2 nights which didn't have much going on except that it was on Marlborough Sounds and the closest town to the Queen Charlotte walking track - one of New Zealand's "Great Walks" (these are 9 multiple day hiking trails around NZ).
Our 2nd day on the south island we drove to one end of the Queen Charlotte track and started hiking in. The first few hours were mild in their inclines and we covered 14 km's pretty quickly and tried to push on to the upcoming hilltop
The Dimholt Road
aka - Pintupi Pinnacles lookout before stopping to eat anything - this was a very steep hour away and by the time we got to the top we both pretty much collapsed. It was well worth it though, we could look out on the Sounds in all directions and it was spectacular. We rested up there for quite a while, enjoyed our lunches, the rested some more before heading back the way we came. Our hike was 35 km's roundtrip which is around 21 miles I think, our muscles felt pretty in shape, but that much hiking still causes great pain to our feet by the end of the day.
From Picton we drove down to Kaikoura, which was a nice drive (for the most part). The speed limit on any open road in NZ is 100 km/h and we had been following a semi doing around 85-90 for quite some time when finally we got to a long, open, downhill stretch of road which was also a passing lane. I went ahead and passed this semi, getting up to 122 km/h I'm told. This is the fastest I'll ever be driving in this country and this was the speed the radar gun
The Dimholt Road
some pinnacles along the riverbed got up to that the nice officer who gave me the $170 ticket had (boo!). Well, it doesn't effect my driving record or anything of that nature, so that's good, but damnit! that's expensive. Oh well....on to more happy things.
Well, one more not-so-happy thing first. When looking through all the hostels in Kaikoura one of them offered free kayaks for the use of their guests, and although all of it's other factors were worse than the others, we had to go there so we could kayak. Turns out they knew nothing about that offer, or the offer of free tea and coffee even though they were in the hostel book and on their website, so we stayed in a pretty crappy hostel with nothing to offer.
Kaikoura was pretty nice though. It's main attraction is whale watching and dolphin swimming tours, but it was cold and we can do some dolphin swimming at the northern end of the island more into summer so we stayed away from that. We did do a pretty cool hike along the shoreline which passed by a seal colony and a few bird colonies (just seagulls, not too exciting and very smelly)
and then returned along a clifftop. We had lots of spare time at the hostel so we read a lot, got a bottle of wine, cooked some pasta, and played lots of cribbage (Daniel has now won 6 games in a row).
Today we (Daniel, cuz I'm still on break from driving) drove down to Christchurch. It's a somewhat large - 355,000 person - city with a English feel to it. Lots of old, cathedral-style buildings, and the biggest cathedral in NZ. Today we walked around the town center, saw the cathedral, ate some terrible fish and chips while watching an Australian guy do a skit in the town center - kinda like Grin and Barret but not as funny (and they're not really that funny). We also went to an art museum and saw some really cool art, and some of that stuff that a kindergardener could make but ends up in the same place anyways. We then walked through part of an enourmous botanical garden which we'll have to go back to tomorrow to see some of the other things (like the bonzai house). Now we are enjoying the free internet offered by this hostel - which
The Dimholt Road
riverbed from the top they actually delivered on, and thinking about ordering some dinner for delivery, which you don't even have to pay extra or tip for. Alright, on the posting of pictures.
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Motenko-Neal
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Dear Paul, I am glad to see you boys without your shirts. It's a Mom thing to get a view of your body health. I like what I see but Daniel's smile seemed a bit of a grimace; I think, perhaps, because you two were probably exhausted. I love all of your pictures, Paul, particularly the one of you on the Dimholt Road and the one of the riverbed from the top. The Marlborough Sounds' photographs show what folks have been raving about. Your photos, though, are prompting me to come join you, sorry to say. So, I'd be worried if I were you and Danny. Okay, what does "WTT sheep for brick + wood" mean? Is WTT an abbreviation for Wellington and do the sheep get traded for brick and wood (we traded our goats for fire wood)? Thank you, thank you so much for your blog and your photographs. Keep 'em coming. The cool plants remind me of plants my Paul and I saw along our route and hikes to Washington State this summer. We saw lots of fern. And we've seen pinnacles on hikes in California and some of those penis-shaped pinnacles/rocks are in the Utah parks. Christchurch, obviously, reminds me of Italian cathedrals and towns especially the Gothic architecture which is of Byzantine and Arab influence. (Yes, I just researched that last bit on the internet. But, I had originally learned about the architectural influences during our travels in Italy.) As to speeding: must have felt like you needed to pull away fro that ever-so-slow pace behind the truck, but Take your time (old person's advice) because you have that, time, and journey and dreams to pursue, not to race towards. Every step and moment along the way you absorb experiences that move you. With best wishes and love, Karen