If you would have told me this time last year that I would be boarding a plane on my own to backpack for a week by myself, I would have told you to go see a therapist because I would have thought you were crazy! Seriously who am I? I hardly recognize myself anymore... Cause that’s exactly what I did. My host family went to the Gold Coast in Australia for Easter holidays, so I got 10 days of freedom! Since we did a deep South tour over Christmas I decided to visit the top of the South Island.
Christchurch
So Sunday morning I was Christchurch bound. I ended up sitting in between 2 girls who were both studying here and were now traveling on their Easter break, one of them was Austrian and the other was Canadian :) Once at the airport I needed to get to my hostel so I went to the i-site and the women there was extremely helpful! She got me a map and wrote some helpful things on it and then she even walked me to the bus stop on her way out.
The last time I was in the South Island I ended up really enjoying Christchurch and lots of people thought that was weird because it is a town in ruin after the earthquake they had about 3 years ago. But the way they have begun to built back the city was really interesting to me. This could be because of my degree and having taken some international development classes in which we talked about building up cities after natural disasters. But I also think that it reminded me of Haiti and my visit there after their major earthquake in 2010. It was interesting for me to compare the differences in progress between Christchurch and Haiti.
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| Shipping containers holding up the wall |
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| This was called Knit Happens. They had a bunch of words like love, faith and hope knit into the fence. |
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| 185 Empty Chairs. Remembering all who died in the earthquake. Every chair was different. Very powerful. |
So I spent the day walking around the city visiting some of the areas that I had missed the last time I was there.
Outdoor Dyslexia Exhibit
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| 'Falling in Love' |
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Canterbury Museum
Friendship Corner
Bridge of Remembrance
Since it was Easter Sunday I decided to check out what was going on at the Transitional Cardboard Cathedral. They had an evening service called a Festal Evensong, where the whole service (except for the message) was sung by a choir. It was really cool! The message was also very interesting. This was the first Easter service held in the Cardboard Cathedral. The priest was comparing the transitional cathedral as a sign of hope and new beginnings for Christchurch with the Easter message of hope.
Hanmer Springs
The next morning I got up early, made myself a coffee and walked over to the Botanic Gardens and walked around before catching a bus to Hanmer Springs. Hanmer Springs is a small little town an hour north of Christchurch which is famous for its Thermal Pools and Spa. So I spent a relaxing day reading, sitting in the sun and spa pools and walking around the shops.
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| Bliss! |
Kaikoura
On our way into Kaikoura we drove along the coast for about 15 minutes before getting into the town. It was probably the most beautiful coastal drives I have ever seen. The sun was shining; massive mountains on one side and the water splashing on the other. Huge rocks jutted out of the water and I watched as the waves crashed against them. It was amazing!
After checking into my hostel I took the chance while it was still sunny to walk into town and check in for my whale watching tour. I met another girl who was traveling by herself. Her name was Marlene and she was from Germany. She was traveling with her friend Rebecca from England but Rebecca gets kind of sea sick so Marlene decided to go by herself. And in retrospect that was a good idea because we had a couple people get really sick on our boat and unfortunately one of those people was 2 seats over from me. So when they told us that we could go out on to the deck I ran! Our first stop was the whale! We learnt a lot about whales on our way to the spot. We learnt that only male whales travel in this area because it is too cold for female and baby whales. Male whales travel in groups until they reach a certain age and then they swim by themselves. There is also no guarantee that we would see one but they use sensors and also GPS with the last spotting. Whales will come to the surface and stay there for about 5-10 minutes and then they will dive for about 45-60 minutes! When we spotted the whale we watched it float around for about 20 minutes! This was unusually long and the crew kept going get your cameras ready, it’s going to dive! And then it wouldn’t! They did this about 5 times before it actually dived. But when it did we got a great view of it’s tail!
On our way back we also got to see a HUGE pod of dusky dolphins! There were 100’s of them! It was amazing. Everywhere we looked we saw groups of them, jumping and playing!
After a rainy afternoon I got into some dry clothes and headed to the kitchen for dinner. It was super busy in the kitchen and common area, so I sat down at an empty seat next to some girls and started chatting. We started by asking the usual question of “where are you from?” Holly and Becca were from the UK and then the girl sitting next to me, Jenny, was Canadian! So I excitedly responded by saying I was also Canadian! It’s so funny that when you meet people from your own country you just automatically connect. There was an amazing vibe going on in the hostel. There was no TV and the common area was full of couches and musical interments. So we sat for hours talking and listening to people jam together with guitars, ukuleles, a piano and someone even played some spoons!
The next morning I woke up at 6am to walk to a lookout to watch the sunrise. I made a warm coffee and headed into the cold darkness. It was about a half hour walk and when I made it to the lookout I sat peacefully and enjoyed the 360 degree view of Kaikoura.
When I got back to the hostel I quickly made breakfast and packed up to catch my next bus to Nelson with Jenny and Becca.
Nelson
After a quick stop over in Blenheim we made it to Nelson late afternoon where we booked a kayak trip for the next day in Abel Tasman! Abel Tasman is one of New Zealand’s famous National Parks. New Zealand got hit with a massive rain cycle over the South Island and so for the 2 weeks before my trip it rained everyday! But we decided to brave it anyways. After checking into my hostel I took a walk around the Nelson city centre and I found a special jewelry shop:
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| The actual ring they used in the LOTR movies! |
I also found this cute little bakery, but it unfortunately was closed for renovations. I guess I'll just have to try the real stuff in Sweden!
Abel Tasman
The next morning we got picked up at 7am to get shuttled to the park. Once at the park we got briefed about the kayaks and got an overview of the area. I’m not going to lie it was a little scary and intimidating hearing about the wind patterns, rocks, high and low tides. We got all our stuff packed into out kayaks and then we were transferred to the water where we got a quick lesson and then we were off! As we were carrying the kayaks to the water we saw loads of star fish just sitting in the sand. We were told to take a good look at our surroundings and were pointed out a spot way far on the beach. This was going to be where we drop off the kayaks at the end of the day. It was a good kilometer from where we were standing because at the moment it was low tide and when we come back it would be high tide and this is a 4 meter difference in water levels! Crazy eh!
Our first destination was an Adele Island. It took us about 30 minutes to get to there. We parked our kayaks on a sand bar that jutted out from the island. The birds on the island were making the most amazing music, I was surprised at how loud and how many different types of sounds there were. It was incredible.
After spending some time on Adele Island we crossed the water to Stilwel Beach. Here we decided to go for a walk. Just when you think the green cant get any greener, it did! Here were some of the views we saw:
After our walk we parked on the beach for some lunch. And it took maybe 30 seconds for all the sandflies to find us and enjoying a little lunch themselves. I later found out from my host dad that Abel Tasman is notorious for sandflies... I wish I would have known that before, I would have bought the strongest bug spray out there!
We heard that seals hang around the islands so kayaked back to Adele Island and went all the way around it in the hopes of spotting some seals. We saw some lazy seals basking on the rocks. After going around the island we headed back to one of the beaches for a break before going back to base. We kayaked to Appletree Beach, here Becca and I switched kayaked because I wanted to have a go in the single kayak. We stuck close to the coast as we headed back to our drop off site. We were greeted with warm showers before our shuttle back to Nelson.
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| A shaky picture from the kayak as we went around Adele Island looking for seals |
We got extremely lucky with the weather! It was a perfect day with amazing company!
We had met 2 people traveling by themselves on the way home and invited them to come out for dinner with us. Becca had read about a really good pizza place from one of her travel books, so we decided to meet there for a late dinner. When we arrived it was booming but we luckily grabbed a table. It was probably the best pizza I have ever had! Authentic Italian thin crust pizzas. Yum! We all got different types and traded piece for piece. We shared in great conversation and lots of laughs for the rest of the evening.
Picton
The next morning I was heading to Picton, so I had to say goodbye to Jenny and Becca. They were fantastic travel mates and I was glad to share a short time with them.
I wasn’t really excited about this because everyone had been telling me that basically the only thing in Picton is the ferry to Wellington... But once I got there it wasn’t as bad as everyone had been saying. I arrived in the rain but I didn’t want to waste my afternoon, so I went for a walk around the city centre and then on a scenic walk to Bob’s Bay. On my way there I went up through the foresty hills and on my way back I walked along the coast and got some great views of the harbour and the Malborough Sounds.
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| Bob's Bay |
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| Picton Harbour |
I got back to my hostel some other girls had arrived and we got talking. One of them was Canadian and she had been a nanny in Australia and was now traveling around New Zealand before she heads back home. She was traveling with a Dutch girl who is an Au Pair in Auckland and is good friends with some girls I had just met and started hanging out with! Very small world! Later we met 2 German girls who had been living in Australia for one and half years, they had the coolest accents! We all headed to the kitchen to make dinner and ended up sitting at a vey International table. There people from America, France, German, the Netherlands and of course CANADA :) After dinner we went to a small bar to listen to live music. It was a couple who played old country classics! I think that was the first time I have heard country music here, so it reminded me a little bit of home.
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| Rent a Teddy in my hostel |
The next morning I went for a short walk to the harbour to snap some pictures of it in the beautiful sunlight.
Later I met up with Jannette (Dutch) and Sam (Canadian) for coffee before Sam had to board her bus. It was time for Jannette to get back to her host family so we were on the same ferry to Wellington. The ferry from Picton to Wellington is about 3.5 hours. As you leave Picton you go through Malborough Sounds. It was amazing! Massive hills and tree covered mountains all around us. I was sitting beside a couple and started talking with them. They were newly engaged and in the process of moving from Greymouth to Wellingotn. They were quite interested in hearing about Canada, my job here and my studies. They were also very knowledgeable about the Sounds and she had worked on some of the islands and would blurt out interesting facts as we went. It was starting to get cold so I went inside and watched Matilda, haven’t seen that movie in ages! We finally made it to Wellington as the sun was setting. My friend Olivia was wofing in Wellington at this time and I haven’t seen her since she left Auckland in February. So we planned to meet up for dinner in-between the ferry and my flight. It was a happy reunion in the ferry terminal and we started trading stories. It was a quick time then I was off to the airport for my flight home to Auckland. I was greeted by a very happy Jenni at the airport who had been pretty bored while I was gone.
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| Sam, Jannette and I |
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| Bye Picton! |
It was a very quick 6 days and I got to see a lot of cool new things. But I think I was mostly proud that I had done this on my own. I could have stayed at home for the week (and I did think about it because I was really nervous and scared) but I have to take these opportunities when I get them. I think it is important for us to push ourselves out of our comfort zones, we can learn so much about ourselves. For my entire life shyness has been one of the first traits I use to describe myself, but now I think I’m going to have find a new one. And that makes me happy :)
