Been excellent for the wildlife this week.  We’ve seen yellow eyed penguins.  The rarest of penguins, only 3000 left in the world.  In fact, not only did we see some, we even nearly ran over one.  Talking of road kill, you can’t move for it over here.  Infact a local did mention it was a sport to hit as many possums as possible at night as they are a pest over here.  We’ve also seen Sea Lions, Dusky Dolphins, Elephant Seals, Falcons, NZ Fur Seals and Royal Albatrosses (all alive and well).

Also the highlight of this week of course was scoring 2ft waves at Colac Beach.  Brrrrrr-illient,  brrrr because it was 13 degrees in the water (not like the 25 currently in Sydney) and ‘illient’ because  it wasn’t very busy at all for sweet waves like that in summer.  However, to keep up my tradition on every surf trip to either injure myself or damage my board first day, I damaged the nose of my board, so that day 2, it spent the day at the menders.  All well now though.

So, it’s been another whirlwind week visiting 7 places in total.  Is seems the more south we go the more dramatic the landscape is.  The most surprising place so far has been Queenstown, since we had reports that it was totally overdeveloped and touristy, we turned up to find a modest sized town with beautiful surroundings. 

Defiantly getting more into the camping swing of things with van.  Bed making time now is in the milly seconds and Nance hasn’t banged her head in hours now, which is great news for me, considering it’s always my fault that she smacks it. 

Wildlife is always good to see.  We managed to find a seal colony after a 3 hr hike through the rain forest to the beach.  I saw my first seal, when Nance pointed out I was about to walk over one.  I did my usual Ninja war cry, which to the untrained ear, can sound like a little girl cry.  Bloody massive those things are.

Well it’s been a whirlwind first week over here.  First port of call was Christchurch, me dad’s old stomping ground.  Although I’m sure it has changed no end over the last 50 years.  We followed the Lonely planet tour round the city.  Next stop was Blenheim, home of many rich winerys.  We had excellent weather for our tour round the brilliant and, towards the end, blurry vine yards.  My liking for white wine has increased ten fold.  Nance’s appreciation also changed slightly that day from liking wine to liking free wine more.

On from Blenheim, we hit our first national park, Able Tasman.  We did an all kayak round it and even though it was chucking it down in the morning and we tried to cancel, the rain held off till the last hour and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Even got to see some seals along the way.  In particular a mum seal taking out it’s baby for a swimming lesson. 

After Blenheim was a brilliant drive through a place called Buller’s Gorge, where we stayed amongst the mountains in a beautiful setting and got eaten by, I think, fruit flies.  Super dooper.

Well I’ve been very lazy in my bloggin lately.  Didn’t even write anything for Xmas. Very lazy.  However to keep this post short I’ll do some summarizing

Christmas

Brilliant.  Started with present opening at 6:30am (not that I was excited at stocking on the door in the morning or anything).  This was then followed by Champagne breakfast at Jenny’s (downstairs) and more present opening, Secret Santa style (or as the Ozzy’s call it Chris Cringle.  Why?? I don’t know.)  Then hit the beach for some super surfing, beach cricket and ray grabbing (sun rays, not blind man Ray).  Evening was polished off with a fantastic BBQ round Iain’s.  Top Christmas.  Could have done with a sprinkling of family though.  Maybe next year.

Nance’s Brithday

Brilliant.  Went for a meal at the legionary Artichoke.  Super food, super people, super drunk.

New Years Eve

Brilliant.  We managed to get tickets to the Gardens due to a couple of our friends being members.  This not only meant we didn’t have to queue for 12hrs, like out friends who camped out at 5.30am in the queue, New Years eve to get in the gardens next to us, but also meant we had loads of space to swing our merry dairyaires.

And that pretty much brings us up to date.  Off to New Zealand in a few days, so no doubt I’ll be sharing with you all what it’s like shacked up with pants for 2 months in a 2 by 1.8 meter camper van….. mmmmm cozy!!!!