Blogs from Nelson, Nelson Region, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 8

I really do have some irrational fears...I'm happy to pack in my job in a recession to travel by myself around New Zealand and Australia, yet I'm terrified of, amongst other things, giant squid. Which live very, very deep at the bottom of the ocean. Anyway, at the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa in Wellington, last week I found myself at one of their temporary exhibitions: Colossal Squid. Which featured a dead giant squid on display. That I was fine with, but the exhibit also featured a 5 minute CGI film about the squid and its life. Which I had to walk out of, basically due to terror. An ANIMATED film. Too scary for me. Shocking, and yet I'll jump out of a plane. Like I said last time, my initial impressions of Wellington ... read more

Luckily, the tsunami turned out to be little more than a high tide. We were a little worried as we watched the news report in a house sitting 4 meters above sea level. I am also lucky to have left Chile a month ago as I see images of places that I've been now destroyed. I actually felt an earthquake when I was camping a few weeks ago in Te Anau. Half asleep, I first thought that people had hold of my mattress pad and were rocking back and forth. Quite a nice experience in the forest without the danger falling buildings. Along the way up the coast from Wanaka I met up with Vanessa again to do the 3-day Copland Track which follows a river up to the base of Mt Cook and rewards hikers ... read more

Day 3: 9-2-10 The eventful portion of the day was spent traveling to and in and around the Farewell Spit. Geographically, a spit is a narrow strip of land that juts out into the sea -I did not know that until recently- and is really cool. Getting there though, was a bit of a challenge. We drove up the most curvy road any of us had ever seen, which was only two lanes, wound around the side of a mountain, while next to us was a cliff leading to a most certain death, driving of the left side of the road, with the driver on the right side of the car. I hope this is enough said about my strees level. This particular spit is especially interesting because it is the most northern point of the ... read more

We’re back from our last trip to the south island. It’s bittersweet; sweet because we absolutely love the the south island, with its small population (less than 25% live down here!), breathtaking vistas, and can't-put-your-finger-on-what-it-is magical feel. It’s almost like a country of its own. But it’s also bitter, because we won’t be going back again for a very long time, if ever. Anyway, we spent our week well. We wanted to get an early start on our first day, so we took a night flight to Christchurch so we could get going right away the next morning. The trip up to Kaikoura was pretty, with lots of driving right along the ocean, through narrow tunnels and so forth. We had lunch in town and then went whale watching. The whales in Kaikoura change throughout the ... read more