New Zealand

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I can’t believe it is November already. We feel like we’re in a little bubble where time runs at a different speed to back home. Surprisingly it feels much slower here so I’m not complaining. Arriving in NZ feels feels so long ago now, yet I can’t believe in just a few days we’ll be in Australia in a completely different climate. I can finally pack away my woolly hat and gloves that I’ve got so much use out of while we’ve been here!

First stop of the day was the world's tallest street. It was steep but I'm thinking not that much worse than Steep Hill really. The houses looked so funny perched on the side of the street - I have no idea how the residents cope when it's icy.

After a quick stop there we drove out to a sandbank beach at a place called Warringon. It was white sand with a blackish tinge to it underneath, and it was blown into patterns around the dunes. Athough it was a Saturday the beach was empty; there wasn’t even anybody walking their dog. We enjoyed a blustery walk along the deserted sand. Houses were set back a bit from the beach behind the wide, grassy dunes. There was an amazing house on the seafront road; it looked like a large 1930s English house and it had some stained glass windows, a balcony and a turret. It looked like it had seen better days but was exactly the sort of house I’d go for. Luckily it wasn’t for sale!

We drove up the coast and by the time we arrived at Moeraki Boulders it started to pour down. We used the opportunity to stop for a coffee in our van and a few minutes later the storm had blown over and it was sunny (but freezing) again. We got wrapped up and walked out along the beach to look at the boulders which had emerged from the cliffs as they eroded over years and years. Only the large boulders remained as people had apparently taken the smaller ones as souvenirs which was a shame. We spent a long time walking amongst them, examining the different patterns in the stone, and looking in the rock pools that had formed in the centre of the ones that had split open. There really were some beautiful formations, especially those which were now completely cracked open and lay in small fragments - the inside of the rocks looked like honeycomb with lots of small holes with angular sides and they were filled with sea water, shells, snails and moss. We couldn’t stop taking photos as there were just so many of them to look at.

When we realised how late it was getting we decided to make a move as it was a long drive to Christchurch. The rain followed us all the way.

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Photos

A weird building
Matt insisted we put this photo on the blog as it's the weirdest building we've ever seen! Kind of like a caravan come conservatory come space ship on stilts. Bizarre!