First few days in 'Kiwi land'

After a relatively short flight to New Zealand from Sydney, we arrived in a cold rainy Christchurch. It felt very much like England, or perhaps a typical Swedish summer day… The rain poured down as we took a shuttle into the city centre and our hotel.

As we now had reached our ‘end destination’ on our trip, we decided to treat our visit in Christchurch as an administrative stop rather than a sightseeing destination to get our bearings right, sort out or plans for the next seven weeks and attempt at getting a little ‘ORGANIZED’.

In the southern hemisphere it’s now the end of summer, so somewhere equivalent to late August (Sweden or England) or early September in Canada (Vancouver). Around Christchurch the grass on the hills was a little yellowish from a long summer but after the initial rainy welcome, the next day it was very warm and around 25C.

We had talked about renting a small camper van, a bigger camper van with a toilet and shower, or a car, but after careful consideration, we decided to buy a car and drive around for a few weeks stopping at B&Bs and motels before renting a small place and stay in one destination for the remaining time. Robert researched the options and we headed to the local car auction to see what they had to offer.

We walked to the southern part of Christchurch which is a more industrial part where all the car dealerships and the auction are located. There would be an auction for ‘commercial and 4x4s’ the following day so today was the day to check out what would be auctioned out. A lot of backpackers and travelers do what we plan on doing; buy a car or a van for the time they are in New Zealand and then sell it before they leave. As it is approaching the end of summer, we hoped that we would be able to find something at a reasonable price.

After some looking and kicking of the tires, we (Robert), had a pretty good idea of what was on offer and we headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately, we still hadn’t seen too much of Christchurch yet due to the nature of our stay (sorting stuff out rather than sightseeing), but Victoria was happy to see that there were many sushi restaurants as she has been craving sushi since she left Vancouver. This time around she had to be satisfied with California rolls and veggie sushi but was happy as a clam! Robert, not being a fan of sushi and raw fish was very accommodating in satisfying Victoria’s sushi craving and stoically ate a large number of teriyaki beef dishes during our days in Christchurch. In fact, the city centre of Christchurch seems to be the home to an abundance of Japanese and Korean restaurants and shops and a lot of young Japanese and Koreans that look like language students.

The next day Robert headed to the car auction while Victoria pottered around on her own. About two hours later, Robert came back with a car!!!! He had bought a 4x4 Mitsubishi Pajero to a decent price which meant that we now had wheels!!!! The car had to go through an inspection and the only thing that was ‘wrong’ with it was that one of the seatbelts in the back seat needed replacement. Other than that, we were pretty much ready to go!

We set off the next day and our only definitive plan was to ‘go north’. We bought some map books and started driving. The landscape was beautiful and as soon as we left Christchurch we started seeing some of the millions of sheep that inhabit New Zealand. They are everywhere but are mixed with other animals like farmed deer, cows, horses and the occasional goat and lama. It is clear that farming and raising sheep and cattle is big business in New Zealand!

We more or less drove along the coast and the landscape is quite varied. Some parts look drier and hotter and not much unlike the Okanagan in Canada. Not surprisingly though as we were heading to the Marlborough district where the Kiwis grow their famous wine. Other parts along the coast are very rugged with large waves and rocky beaches.

The first night we stopped in Kaikoura, a little beach resort town on the north eastern side of the South Island. We arrived late and accepted the first hotel that had a room available. We had dinner at a nice restaurant and the seafood chowder was almost to die for! So good! The size of the mussels in the chowder were about twice the size of any other mussel either of us had ever seen. But as the waitress said ‘everything is bigger in New Zealand’… hahaha!!!

The next day we drove from Kaikoura to Picton which is the home of the ferry terminal for crossing over from the south to the north island. We drove through the Marlborough district with vineyards and more sheep and decided to stop on the way back south again as we wanted to have more time to visit and sampling some Kiwi wine.

At some point when we were driving along the sea there was suddenly a sign warning for seals on the road. Hmmm…. After traveling through Canada we have seen warnings for moose, deer, bears and the occasional horse, but never a ‘seal on the road’ warning…
Well, it turned out that there is a large seal colony on the rocks just off the highway and during really rough weather, there is a possibility that the waves sweep the seals off the shore and all the way up to the road!!! Luckily today was a less windy day so we just enjoyed the seals on the beach instead. They were an entertainment to watch! The parent seals were lazy and sleeping on the beach but the baby seals where playing. They were chasing each other up and down the rocks and playing in a natural rock pool that had formed; swimming, diving, splashing and being… youngsters.

We reached the ferry terminal in Picton well on time to find that our ferry was about an hour and a half delayed due to very rough weather…….

The loading of the ferry took forever and was something of a very inefficient procedure. Later on we realized it was slow because they had to carefully secure all the bigger trucks in preparation for a bumpy ride. Still, the organization of the loading was somewhat of a comedy!

The trip over to Wellington that should have taken about 3 hours took close to 4 hours and yes, the sea was rough! More than one person grabbed a designated seasickness paper bag ‘just in case’, and more than one passenger used them! The rolling of the ferry was particularly bad in the front and the back so most people congregated in the middle of the ship.

We were quite happy and relieved when we finally reached Wellington, and on a little bit of shaky legs we drove off the ferry and in to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand!

written by  Victoria & Robert on March 15, 2010 from Christchurch, New Zealand
from the travel blog: The rest of the world
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