It seems like its been an awful long time since we last wrote. I suppose its really only been about 4 days. Our last day in Napier was a wet one. We had planned on going to the beach but that got kaiboshed... so we walked in the POURING rain to a place called the Boathouse. It is a very neat shop filled with antique mariner tidbits. Photographs and paintings of old ships and lighthouses, original ships-in-bottles, some over a hundred years old, bits and pieces that divers have pulled up from shipwrecks, World War I and II relics, be they toys, tools, compasses, spoons, china wear, or coins. The owner himself was an interesting man, dedicated to finding the history and story behind each piece in the shop, researching its origins and its authenticity. It made for a very interesting morning listening to him tell about many of the different pieces and how they came to be in his shop. He was a professional model maker in Australia, and he brought that back to his shop making model ships, ships in bottles, and restoring authentic pieces. He was also in the process of building a scale model of the Napier bay prior to the tsunami/earthquake that caused some of the seabed to be raised over 2 meters, turning what had been lagoons into solid ground. So that was pretty neat. From there we grabbed a hot chocolate for the long wet walk back to our lovely toad hall.... and went for a second session at the hot pools. We figured, hey we're already wet, we may as well be warm! Then back to the Hogs Breath to try the seafood platter.
Our next crazy kiwi bus trip brought us to Wellington. The capital city of New Zealand and a very artsy city. It may very well be the smallest capital city in the world, its very condensed. I think we walked the entire core of the city about 12 times in two days. About the only thing we didn't take in was the residential area. We spent a fair amount of time on Lambton Quay. Now apparently the water front used to butt up to Lambton Quay at some point, thus the name, but now the water front is about 1-2 streets away. We're not sure what happened there, whether it was man made or earth made, but the difference in distance is quite significant.
So when we arrived in Wellington, our bus dropped us at the train station and we searched the GPS for a backpackers lodge in the vicinity. We found one and headed on our way and then the GPS decided it was a good time to freeze. And naturally stay frozen for a good long while, and of course we didnt have a map of Wellington yet. So we wandered around (luckily not in circles) until we found "Wellywood" backpackers. It was like a 5 floor apartment complex all set up as a backpackers. Maybe not the most personable, but it was clean and we certainly didn't worry about falling through the floors! big step up! That night we walked the streets and tried to get our bearings. For some reason Miles was very turned around in Wellington, not sure he's got those bearings even yet.
We had one full day in Wellington to make the most of. We took the cable car up to the botanical gardens and wandered the gorgeous paths through beautiful trees, lovely flowers, and a swarm of rather perturbed bees that had been stirred up by something. We heard the steady thrum of pissed flying, stinging insects and kept well away. Bri being leery of any winged stinger since a very undeserved sting in Thames. (so she claims). At the gardens, its just a few steps away from the Carter's observatory. We decided to take in a program (similar to the one at the Space and Science Center Edmonton) that shows some of the more well known constellations of the southern hemisphere. We learned the significance of the "Southern Cross" also known as "Crux", depicted on the New Zealand national flag. The Southern Cross along with two "pointer" stars and another particularly bright star, can be used to locate the southern pole. This was very important to the Maori and other navigators long ago. The Maori may not have found the islands without the cross to guide them, neither would the Europeans.
We headed back down the Cable car and did a walking tour and photo shoot of the city. Along the way we grabbed some crepes from a hole-in-the-wall crepery. Litterally, there was like a 6 foot gap between two big buildings and there was a tiny crepe stand wedged into it. But OH MY GOD those crepes were to die for. SOOOOO good. We tried to go back again later but they had closed for the night :( :( I just had a simple butter, sugar and cinnamon crepe, and Miles had one with Nutella, banana and coconut. Yum! I suppose its a good thing we didn't get two, or Miles hips wouldn't fit through the shop door (inside joke for Wes there).
A particularly amusing moment was when we saw a pigeon fly full speed at a gap between a wall and column and wedge itself between the two, it did later escape, but we were contemplating a rescue mission. Apparently they do that all the time according to the unimpressed security guard we ran into amidst our startled exclamations.
Had another yummy supper at the hogs breath (another branch in this city, lucky us) then back to the hostle to pack up to catch the ferry to Picton in the morning.
On the shuttle to the ferry we met a fellow Albertan, (a Calgarian, but we'll forgive him) then he just kept popping up. Couldn't get rid of the fellow! Just kidding, he was really nice and we actually ended up at the same hostle for the night and spent most of it visiting with him (Jordan), Hector from the Dominican, and Henrich from Germany. We spent the night in stitches over Hectors stories from his trip to China (communal toilets ick, and mis-identified political leaders- no the Chinese leader did not die a few weeks ago, that was Korea.), Jordan's crazy Irishmen who snuck into NZ in sea cans on container ships (seriously!?!?! four weeks on bags of sugar??? fuck And how the hell do you get out again????) not to mention a old crazy drunk man coming back into the dorm room at the hostel without pants.... go figure that one, or a girl stripping buck naked to win a contest in a bar, her mom must be proud.
So back to the sherry via fuddle er.... ferry, its a three hour sail from Wellington to Picton. Miles enjoyed the trip from the front lounge of the ferry, watching the scenery and the ocean go by. Brianna didn't so much enjoy the trip from the outside deck freezing and trying not to puke as she watched the the most distant horizon line... behind us. But Miles had a good time, though was totally perplexed as to how Brianna could get SO sick on such a huge vessel and yet be fine one a tiny little diving boat bobbing around like a cork in the much larger waves... he's still working on that.
We arrived in Picton and got pretty much the only room left in the town- bunkbeds. We then proceeded to check out the town, pretty small, very beautiful and very homey. We hadn't been sure we wanted to spend much time in Picton originally, but wound up spending three nights.We booked a sea Kayak tour through Kerepuru sound, and a dolphin watching/swimming cruise through Queen Charlotte Sound and up Tory straight.
So January 31, Kayaking! We took a cougarline water taxi across Queen Charlotte Sound to the Portage, took a quick shuttle to Portage bay in Kenepuru sound and from there we took to the water. Now bear in mind we have never sat in kayaks before and we are flat-landers. We were looking out at the bay and the 2 foot swells going "ummmmm are you sure that navigable???" even our guide was questioning it a bit at times. So we headed off on our maiden voyage- against an INSANE headwind and waves bigger than I like think about. And it wasn't that bad! Miles took the rear so the stearing was in his hands- or feet really as thats how the rudder is controlled, while I took the front. Much to my frustration as I"m admittedly a control freak. Now add to that that I kept getting blinded as we were continually swamped by large breaking waves and I was a bit grumpy... ok a lot. but once the wind died down and we got to sheltered water, I really enjoyed it. Miles loved the whole thing. I'm making him sit in the front next time. In all seriousness though it was pretty great. When we reached sheltered, calmer waters, we headed over to a nearby mussel farm and raided a few green lipped mussels off the line. Much easier said than done. We rafted together our three kayaks and Miles and Marius (our guide) heaved up the line to reach the mussels. Miles was rewarded by picking some of them off, and receiving them promptly in his lap. We pulled up approx 3lbs of mussels which costs roughly about 80 dollars at a restaurant as we were informed by our companions on our trip. Then after our raid we took to a nearby oyster bed and got out of our kayaks for a much deserved stretch and some delectable rock oysters, served up fresh. We took oysters on a half shell to a new level. Break it open still stuck to the rock, a little lemon for flavour and down it all goes. That is fresh seafood. Quite tasty, even Miles started breaking oysters with a rock to get a few. Miles doesn't even like oysters, but they were tasty.
Running out of time, to be continued...
Continuing February 2
From the oyster bed we jumped back in the kayaks and headed to a gravelly beach where we had lunch. We cooked up the mussels and had sandwiches and cookies and hot chocolate on the beach. What a great day! The paddle back to the bay where we started was much easier as we had the wind at our backs.
On the first we tried to go dolphin swimming. Now after watching "the Cove" we did a fair bit of research into the ethics behind the tour, but in NZ they are very wildlife conscienscious. They take protecting and conserving to a very different level than north americans, its actually really great to see. So this tour takes you into the bay and tries to find pods of wild dolphins, they will drop you in the water about 300 m ahead of the pod and leave contact up to the animals. If they choose not to, they will try again a max of four times and then if its still no go they leave the pod alone. There are five dolphin species in the sounds at different point during the year, Hectors dolphins- the smallest and most rare/endangered which you are not allowed to enter the water with for conservation reasons, they are about 120 cm (approx 4 ft) is their maximum size. Then there are Dusky dolphins, they max out at about 4 to 5 feet, the Common dolphin which is slightly larger than that, Bottle nose which everyone is familiar with which can be as much as 4 m in length, and the Orca aka Killer Whale. Now you can't swim with Hectors or Orcas, and you certainly never see them together! Our tour was searching for a pod of bottlenose that had been in the area recently to swim with, unfortunately we never did see them, so no swimming for us. BUT we did see about 3 or 4 Hectors dolphins. They are very shy according to the guides so they were really excited to see them close to the boat. We were pretty excited too, its a once in a lifetime sighting as these dolphins are only found in New Zealand waters and they are very endangered. They were SO tiny! When you're used to seeing most video footage of bottlenose dolphins, its hard to imagine a full grown dolphin who is shorter than the average 10 year old. Their calves are approx the size of a football at birth. We got a very cool tour though, we travelled the entire Queen Charlotte sound out to the Tasman sea, and then got to tour part of Tory Channel as well in our search for bottlenose. Miles and I were the first to spot the Hectors, even before the guides which was kinda cool. We saw a lot of wild birdlife too, Australasian Gannets were the most noted as they plummeted towards the water at speeds up to 145km/h!!!!! Now thats a fast dive, better hope its deep water. the sound as they hit the water makes it sound painful to be honest, the splash is impressive. They aren't small birds either, their wingspan is probably 3 feet. We also saw fluttering Shearwaters and someone spotted little blue penguins, but we didn't see them. Our Skipper Paul gave us some info on really neat local dive sites that we may check out. He's and underwater videographer so he had some really neat stories about diving and photography that he told us. Apparently Octopus are smart and territorial, VERY territorial.... they never tell you that in your open water classes! His first dive with a company taking sea urchins, he was looking over the side of the boat and saw WAY too much air coming up from the diver so he's going "what the hell?" the guy surfaces with a HUGE Octopus clinging to his back and all 8 tenticals wrapped around his body head and neck. All Paul could see was one terrified buggy eyeball peaking out around octopus. When Paul started unwrapping the guy, the Octopus tried to attack him so he grabbed a few tenticles, started whipping it in circles above his head and let her fly. Freaky. Glad I wasn't that diver! Note to self- never steal an octopusses sea urchins...
So because we didn't swim we got some money back, we didn't have a wallet with us so we came back a few hours later to do the exchange. Our luck that we did because as we were about to head out again, Natasha and Paul (different paul) were like "are you at a backpackers tonight?" which we were, so they asked if we had supper and we hadn't planned it yet so they were like "here have some fish" A buddy of theirs had come in with a HUGE grouper cleaned and filleted and they had more than they could eat so they gave us a large fillet to cook up for supper. Yum! we had a seafood feast, we picked up mussels and calamari to go with the fish and man it was good. you just cant beat fresh seafood.
WE checked out some of the local shops and found some neat things we'll have to share when we get home.
We are now in Nelson, on our way to Abel Tasman National Park. I'm not sure we'll have much in the way of internet for a while, so we'll check in when we can.
Hope everyone at home is doing good.
Cheers,
Brianna and Miles
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