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Published: February 21st 2007
We left the beauty of the south and headed for Christchurch. We spent three days in Christchurch and explored the Botanical gardens, went up the gondola, and just explored the city. It's a beautiful city. Unfortunately, the weather was clouded over the entire duration of our stay.
The hostel that we found had just started up and we were misled by a few good reviews. It turns out that Point Break backpackers is a good 20 minutes by bus from the city centre. Not to mention the fact that the area it's in is a virtual ghost-town. The hostel was converted from offices and thus had an awful layout. The whole thing reminded me of a twighlight zone episode.
Our next stop was Kaikoru, famous for its marine life and sunshine. Thank goodness, it lived up to the hype. Our main reason for stopping was to swim with the dolphins but it was all booked up for five days so we did a three hour cliff hike and decided we'd leave for the Abel Tasman National Park and then come back.
Kayaking in the Abel Tasman was beautiful. We caught a perfect day, and were lucky enough to
have a small group of four and an excellent instructor. Upon reaching our destination (Anchorage Bay) in the early afternoon, we suntanned for a few hours before making our way to the Acquapackers Boat hostel for the night.
The next day, we spent the better part of it hiking. The trails were much gentler and not nearly as steep as the Routeburn which was a welcome relief. It was extremely busy and I felt a bit bad for the people who had spent four days hiking, only to find some smucks like us who kayaked or got dropped off by water taxis on the trail. We hopped on a water taxi and made our way back.
Since the bus timetable didn't work for our return journey to Kaikoru, we had to rent a car. We literally found the last available car in the town of Nelson from a questionable source. Not in a position to haggle we paid three days when were only using it for two, and got the keys to a 1996 Honda Accord with 168 000kms, and a complete new front end & paint job, as the employee let us know that "the boss did
that one". On the bright side, it seemed to drive just fine.
Swimming with the dolphins was definitely a highlight for Megan and I. They instruct you to sing in high pitched tones, make eye contact and to make certain movements that attract the dolphins. With the sound of an air horn, 20 excited tourists clammerred into the water to swim with the pod. One dolphin swam in circles around me four or five times.
After the excitement of the dolphin swimming behind us, we had a full-on travel day to Wellington that consisted of three hours of driving, three hours of bussing, and then a three hour ferry ride to bridge the gap between the south and north islands. Wellington is known as the Chicago of the Southern Hemisphere. The first day was beautiful but the second day has definitely lived up to the cities' reputation.
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Kayaking the Abel Tasman
Patricia
non-member comment
Christchurch????
isn't that where big kiwi is from? You should go say hi and tell him i miss him....