Seal spotting in Kaikoura and crossing the Cook Strait to the North Island

27 - 29 April

Christchurch is one of those places that always gets travellers talking.  Should I go?  Will it be too upsetting?  Is there anything there anymore?  Regrettably I never got the chance to find out due to Stray's timetables and if I'd known this before, I would factored in a few days to stay here.  So my judgement can only go off what I've been told and the pictures I've seen via other travellers.  The city itself is almost derelict and from the sounds of things, it's a long way off from being fully restored.  Having said this, I find Kiwi's get up and go attitude quite inspiring.  Even when their whole world falls apart around them, their first thought was "how do we get back to normal".  Yet, what is normal?  Normal for them is living in 1 room in a 4 bedroomed house or recreating your shop in a makeshift storage container.  This is far beyond my idea of normal...

Once we'd left the airport, it was quickly time to get back in the road and head for Kaikoura, a town famous for its crayfish (in Maori 'Kaikoura' means a 'meal of crayfish').  The town itself is fairly small with numerous seafood takeaways or restaurants.  It was here that I finally got to meet up with Rachel and her friend Diane.  After a rough few days of struggling to get to know people on my bus, it made a nice change to see a familiar face.  Sadly, I didn't get to see Charl or Amelia but I know they're both having an awesome time.  That afternoon, we wandered along the coastline in the hope we'd spot some seals.  We did see one but his head was underwater the entire time we were there.  Thankfully, I saw plenty the next morning en-route to Picton.  I'll never forget watching hundreds of seals jumping through the water almost like dolphins whilst others trekked back down stream scrambling over rocks.

In the afternoon, we crossed the Cook Strait on the Bluebridge Ferry passing through Queen Charlotte sound.  It still amazes me how it takes 3.4-4 hours simply to pass from one island to the other.  We arrived at night resulting in most of us crashing out in bed by 9pm.  The next morning, we took the bus up to Auckland.  11 hours of solid driving was neither comfortable nor fun.

Next stop: Auckland