The long lost update.

Sorry for the delay folks...

When I left off, we were just leaving Punakaiki for Nelson. I hadn't been feeling well so I took the next couple of days pretty easy, and unfortunately quite a bit of time inside sleeping. We stayed at the Beach Hostel outside of the city centre which was a short walk to the beach. We met up with Heather's family friends and they helped us plan out our next few days up in Abel Tasman National Park. On the 14th we headed up to Kateriteri on the water taxi that we boarded in Nelson. We didn't have to catch the bus to Marahau for a couple of hours, so we decided to leave our bags by a bench and enjoy some rays on the golden sand beach. When we got to Marahau we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and deciding on which kayak adventure we would take on the next day.

This is at high tide in Marahau, but at low tide it looks like you could camp out here

These little guys were covering the rocks at Kateriteri, from afar, the rock just looks black

On the 15th we woke up early to meet outside of the kayak office at 830. After a quick safety session, we made our way to the water. In our group there was Emily, Heather and I, a family of 3 from Amsterdam and 2 Germans. We made our way to Watering Cove, having some great views of the coast and getting up close and personal with some seals. At Watering Cove, we were picked up by the water taxi to head over to Bark Bay for a walk back to Torrent Bay. The experience was awesome and definitely worth the money (except for the bee that stung me, I think he was attracted the bright yellow kayak). On the 16th we had a pretty relaxing morning, spent on different beaches before heading back to Nelson for the night.

Our outfits for the day

On the 17th we headed back to Christchurch to meet Karen, as we would be spending our last few nights back in Ashburton with Karen and John. On the 19th, all five of us packed into the car and headed up to Mount Cook for the day. Despite the weather being cloudy and not being able to see the mountain, we still had a great day. We spent the night at Karen's brother and wife's house, which is on a high country sheep station. The next day, we hopped in the back of the truck with the two dogs and climbed a mountain. The station is over 46 000 acres with over 20 000 sheep, and we saw 4 on our trip up the side of the mountain, as most were down below in paddocks.

Heather and Em in front of Lake Tekapo, where on a clear day there is a great view of Mount Cook

Us, with Karen and John, by the Tasman Glacier

Yep, we just climbed that mountain (in a truck...)

 

Roadblock!

On the 21st we made a stop at the Antarctic Center to see the little blue penguins that we hadn't got a chance to see in the wild. We then said our goodbyes at the airport where we would catch our flight to Brisbane. The flight was smooth until we neared the city. The sky became darker and it was pouring rain and storming all around us. The airport was closed so we couldn't land right away, but eventually made it down to the ground before running low on fuel and having to fly to Sydney to land. It turns out we might has well landed in Sydney because our flight to Adelaide was cancelled and we were bused to a hotel for the night and then the next afternoon put on a flight to Sydney and then on a flight to Adelaide.

Our thoughts and prayers are going out to those in the Christchurch area. We are happy to hear that all of our friends our safe, but have seen some pretty devastating footage on TV. We originally saw footage on the flight from Sydney to Adelaide, so I was happy to have a message waiting saying everyone was safe once we arrived here. Our delays suddenly didn't seem so bad when we realized we got out of Christchurch just in time, as they closed the airport after the quake.

Today Emily and I checked out the University, the beach, purchased groceries for the week and spent the rest of afternoon by the pool (we are staying at a homestay in one of the suburbs). Steve, our host, has been graciously showing us around, and we are also enjoying the company of his dog, Marty.