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Published: March 5th 2007
Arrival in New Zealand
What an amazing view - overwhelming, beautiful and respectful at the same time. We are trying to write more often now as 3 weeks in one summary was a big chunk to work on and I had some people asking for the next blog already..... 😊
Coming from Australia a stunning view from our airplane window was awaiting us. We flew over the western, south island mountains, which we will see so much of in the not so distant future. Straight away my thoughts went to: How is our little campervan going to get through that and also are we trained enough to climb those giants?
Christchurch I call Christchurch a pretty little english town as it reminds us so much of England architecture and also is pretty due to its enormeaus Botanical Gardens, small shops and cafes. We did the whole touristy thing: went to the Art Gallery showing the Maori culture and clothing, Art Center with lots of whool shops and jewelry made out of green New Zealand Jade (I am definetely visiting a factory...) and bone.
Also we managed in those two days to book a whale trip for Ali - Ali is scared of whales and so will over come his fear by living in one
Christchurch Tram
Pretty small town with a pretty old tram. for a week???? a whole day fox glacier climbing and treking and the most fun of all sky diving from 15,000m. We are not sure when we will do these events but luckely the vouchers are open dated, so we can travel at our own pace. But how exciting is the thought already of doing all that? you jealous eh?
Its surprising how similiar Christchurch is to the old England, it has tramways, cobbleded streets but what really tops it off is a very very English public school located right next to the Botanical gardens. It looks like it belongs in Oxford, the kids attending the school had little shorts on and wore blazors, just like you see in the movies but this was real!!
Bertie the camper van This morning (23.02.07 so you know when we start), we picked up our Campervan. Again, it is pouring down with rain and we just can't believe that it is summer time over here. We were told that it is the worst summer for quiet a while, but best business since over 6 years on tourists. Is there a logical connection? I don't think so. Anyway, the Campervan looks
Sheep
Our first encounter with New Zealand sheep... good and has all what we will require, besides a toilet and shower. We also found out, that we will have to plug the van to an energy port every 3 days, so at least every 3rd day we will have a shower. Just kidding. This means we have to stay in a camp site... not what we were expecting but hey life is full of surprises
We have decided to name our little campervan Bertie, its a long way from the beast as we met in Oz, The Beast took us to the Blue Mountains and back. However its a good little camper
We spent our first night in the camper last night 23.2.07. wow what a night, after driving to Akaroa, we tried to find somewhere to camp over night. Unfortunately its not that easy as one might assume, at least thats what we assumed! We drove around the little costal village and its so pretty, especially the drive here over the mountains and through the valleys, its something out of a movie. you can see why they filmed lord of the rings in NZ now. We drove around the town but only to find no over
night camping! So we were pushed out of the town, on we went to find a place called Akaroa farm Hostel. This place is like heaven, lush green grass, a little gate, smoke from the chimneys.
NZ is a lot colder than OZ, and we really really are feeling it! We asked whether we could camp there over night but they wanted us to pay. so we decided it was not worth it and we ventured on. Finally we came to a spot that not only looked amazing it also had a few bushes... (our toilets) we parked up, set up the table and started to make dinner, only to find our gas burner didnt work or we didnt know how to use it. Neither of us have ever been camping in a camper van before so everything is new and exciting and stressful.
The night was long, especially since neither of us knew how to set up the bed, which is quite funny now thinking back, but at the point we had a couple of wooden planks and that was about it, we made do, placing the planks between the seats and making the bed only to
Ali and the tree
That looks comfi. Ali is the tree.... find the bed falling through the planks. After abouts 45mins we thought lets see if the table fits in there also?? And guess what it did!! We are such idiots at times, not thinking out of the box.
I was awoken by a MOOOOOO the next morning, we camped right next to cows. We made brekki, which was cereal, washed up and off we went into Akaroa. We found a little fuel stop and asked about our gas, which we couldnt get to work, he filled it up, checked to make sure it works and now we have fire in our little Bertie!!! It may not seem like much, but for us it meant hot meals again!! Like i said Akaroa is a very pretty town, it is where the first French settlers - settled, so everything is in French, even the architecture, its so much like south France with little houses and flowers hanging from the windows. Even the people spoke French!! We explored the area by foot which didnt take us long and then we set for Kaikora and Whale watching passing via Christchurch.
The journey to Kaikora is long and windy passing over mountains and
Rosegarden
Mama, das haette Dir super gefallen. Rosen, so wie in Paris. through tunnels. Poor Bertie was struggling to make it up some of the hills. The drive took us around 2 to 3 hours but it felt much longer than that. Along the way we ran out of petrol, thats one thing to remember about NZ, travelling anywhere more than an hour fill your tank! As this was our 4th day in NZ we hadnt realised that everything and i mean everything closes at 5pm. So all the petrol stations were closed! finally we couldnt go any further so we found a closed petrol station and thought lets try and talk to someone and find out what is going on. We ended up in a pub 5 mins from the fuel stop, asked the barmaid and we were in luck, someone else was in the same position as us and they had called the petrol station owner to open up. We had to pay a $10 fee but we had no choice, espcially since we had to get to Kaikora by 7am.
Kaikora Having finally made it here we found the Whaling Station car park and decided thats where we were going to camp for the night. The car
Our Camper
Berti is my name. park is situated right next to the beach and wow it is windy there. Again we set up our bed but this time we knew how, haha we were so proud of our selves. We lay to bed and felt the wind pushing at Bertie, She was being pushed one way and pulled another, it was like sleeping in a boat. I couldnt sleep and so fired her up and parked next to a coach hoping the coach will offer some protection from the wind. Im not sure it did but we felt safer there.
The next morning i was yet again awoken by busses and cars driving past, makes a change from a MOoooooOO. I got up, moved bertie once again as we were not allowed to stay there and started to get ready for the whale watching.
Check in was 7am, so I had some time to kill. We ate brekki but this time we had warm toast!! & tea!!! the little things eh. :-) I then went to check in only to see that the screen at reception warning of sea sickness and there was a strong chance you will get even if you remotely
Our Camper
This is me from the inside. get sea sick. I spoke to the nice young lady at the check in and asked how bad it was, she advised me not to go :-( I had to, i had come all this way!This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and i have a fear of the big creatures so i had to go. After much deliberation i bit the bullet and signed up. I tried every ailment that i could find from pressure points to ginger but it was of no use after 20 mins on the boat i was as sick as the majority. Hey at least i was'nt the only one!
The Sperm Whales, These are the types of Whales found on the east coast of NZ. The males tend to stay there year round whereas the females migrate as it gets too cold for them. There have been sightings of killer whales and sharks in the area but not at this time of the year. I saw three sperm whales in total, when they say these things are big, christ they are big! As big as a 747 jet! i only got to see 10% of the creature and that was bigger
Bank Penensula Beach Cave
One of the many beaches on the Bank Penensula East to Christchurch offer varied scenes.... like this a cave bear called Ali. than the boat we were on. The boat held 48 people plus crew. It was a pretty big boat. I watched the Whales with my mouth wide open, not because i was throwing up, but because they are so magnificent, agile and well it was worth all the gut retching. Apparently the Sperm Whale gets its name from about 130 years ago. Whalers disected a sperm whale's head, which is the largest part of its body, they found over a ton of white sticky liquid... i will let you put two and two together. So hence these magnificent creatures got there name. The only question i have for these people that named the whale sperm whale is how do you get to the idea its sperm when its in the head??? i dont know..... I also got to see the giant birds - Albatros. They have over 2 meters wing span and when they fly over your head you feel it! Other highlights of the trip was a sea lion who came out to greet us all and about 60 hecter dolphins, at this point i was so sea sick i was barely able to watch the dolphins jump in
and out of the water. Finally we made it back to dry land and what a relief that was.
We spent the rest of the day crusing up and down the main stretch of Kaikora, which took us approx 10 mins and then lay on the beach. Our next stop is Hanmer Springs.
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Hussein
non-member comment
Fabulous
This journey of yours is getting me all excited to start exploring the world again. What with 3 children !! I don't know.. I hope you don't get more sea sickness. The pics showed a calm sea though!! Enjoy the rest of the trip. It seems to be going quickly. Hussein