New Zealand Day 2 (November 26th)

I got up and went on a run, then we gathered our stuff and headed over to the camper van pick up location. R's brother found us a deal where we could drive a camper van back up to the North Island and it would be free, minus having to pay for gas, and an extra passenger on the ferry. We are given 5 days to get the van from Christchurch to Auckland.

The camper van rental agency seemed very lame and uptight. Which sucked. Don't ever rent from Apollo if you are in New Zealand or Australia. But, after a bunch of stupidness like having to watch this very repetitive boring video on the camper van, we were finally off. It was an easy and lovely drive the first day. We headed north on Highway 1 toward Kaikoura, which is a a very cute beach town.

On the way up to Kaikoura, we passed through beautiful hill and mountains. It was just endless mountain after mountain and cattle sheep farms between. They were very Sound of Music mountains to me. Green grass covering the majority of them. There are hardly any stretches of ugly here. This place is just void of bad landscape. It is insane. Around every corner was something new and lovely. And so green. That area was just so, so green. We hit a bit of rain, but beyond that, it was very sunny and nice out. And blue skies. Wow. The skies were just so incredibly blue. As we got closer to Kaikoura, we winded through the hills to the beach, and it is quite spectacular as you pop through the mounains, and the dark rocky beaches are revealed and there stunning cliffs everywhere. We went through Kaikoura, and wandered out to a view point. We climbed up and were able to see all of Kaikoura. The area is a pennisula that once had been its own island. Silt and sand beds built up over time and made it part of the mainland. We also discovered what the ridges on the sides of hills were. They often look like the hill has steps, or is layered. They are called pa and were built by the Maoris so they could easily fight on the side of the hills. We had seems som eaerlier in the day and it is really cool to learn about what they were.

We ended up crashing in a picnic area right on the beach, just north of Kaikoura. It was amazing. Mountains oh-so-close to on one side and then amazing beautiful blue, green ocean on the other. I still cannot get over the color of the water here. It is so vibrant in color and spectactular to look at. We did actually see a bunch of gross, muddy rivers today as well, but I read on a sign there had been heavy rains and flooding. So, I think that's why they weren't looking so hot. We got to watch a lovely sunset and look out on the ocean in our own private little setting. It was the perfect end to a lovely day.

The campervan.

Canterbury.

Interesting bridge at a rest stop.


On the way to the coast.

Beautiful cliffs south of Kaikoura.

A shop in Kaikoura. Taken for all the Reinventers ;o)


The coastline of Kaikoura.

The hill down in front has the pa's I talk about above.

Our camp site for the night.

-N.