Sweet As Trip of a Lifetime

We flew out of Christchurch on the evening of Saturday, January 5. Zack and I both agreed that this was truly the trip of a lifetime and New Zealand is an incredible place. We were treated to a beautiful sunset over the mountains as we flew away from our dream holiday.

Here we are sporting our new shirts and jade necklaces on the flight home. "Sweet As" is a saying in New Zealand that basically means "awesome." For example, our trip around the South Island was sweet as and there will never be another vacation like that one!

Kicking it in Kaikoura

                                                           

After a delicious Saturday morning brunch in Christchurch, Jill and Brian (along with baby Louis) dropped us off at the Jucy office so we could pick up our campervan AKA our home sweet home for the next two weeks. We had a beautiful three hour drive to Kaikoura, where we pulled up to our beachside campsite and got temporarily stuck in the sand! With some help from nearby campers, we got out and parked in a more grassy location (still beachside) and saw dolphins in the distance as we ate a late lunch. Then we headed out again to hike around the peninsula.

There were seals everywhere! A mother and baby one are pictured here. We had to be kind of careful as we climbed over rocks and such; you never knew if a seal would be hiding out underneath or just around the corner.

The rock formations along the walk were awesome too-so interesting and unique. Can you spot all the seals?

Zack wanted me to pose for a picture with a seal. When I wouldn't get close enough for his liking, I told him to pose for a shot. He got pretty close and laid down to look like a seal. Well, the one he was close to didn't like this and actually started chasing him. I've never seen Zack get up and move so fast-ha!

Besides seals, there were these black birds with orange eyes/feet/beaks along the walk as well. We found out later that they are called oystercatchers, and they are very protective of their nests. As we walked anywhere in their vicinity, the birds swooped at our heads! So we took a lesson from the Melbourne bikers who have zip ties sticking out of their helmets to avoid swooping and held sticks above our heads when the "angry birds" were nearby!

After we survived our peninsula walk, we went into town and found out that crayfish was the must-try specialty dish. It's not cheap though, so Zack and I split a 1/2 crayfish and shared an order of local blue cod fish and chips. The crayfish tasted like lobster to me; it was a lot of effort to get the "meat" out. I didn't think it was that amazing, but I'm glad we gave it a try. After dinner, we drove back to our beachside campsite and watched Dolphin Tale (to prepare for the next day's activities-you'll see what I mean tomorrow!) on the DVD player in our campervan. We really liked the little seaside town of Kaikoura.

Christchurch Continued

Christchurch had a terrible earthquake in February of 2011. It measured 6.3, killed 185 people, and destroyed thousands of buildings. The city is definitely still recovering. It's actually pretty sad to walk around the downtown area. Rubble, broken windows, scaffolding, and empty buildings make up the bulk of what you see. We had consulted a guidebook published in 2010 for some restaurant recommendations before coming; none of the places once listed exist anymore. I took some pictures to give you an idea of the destruction, nearly a year after the disaster...

This church is across from the Botanic Gardens I showed in yesterday's post.

But there's still some Christmas spirit in this town!

And the people of Christchurch have some spirit too!

From walking and driving around the town, you can see how it was once a beautiful place. Hopefully it can recover from the earthquake and build itself back up again.

Starting out in Christchurch

Time to start the New Zealand posts! We had an overnight flight into Christchurch and got there early in the morning on December 21. We have friends from Denver who live there; Brian picked us up from the airport and Jill (and baby Louis) took us around town after we had a nice nap. One of my favorite places was the Botanic Gardens. The rose garden area was especially beautiful. Zack and I chilled out there awhile; he took another short nap and I took pictures!

Jill also dropped us off in the area where Christchurch has turned shipping containers into temporary stores after the earthquake damage that happened in the city (more about that in tomorrow's post). We did a little shopping and browsing before heading back to Brian and Jill's place for a yummy home-cooked dinner and an early bedtime!