We hopped back onto the Kiwi Bus on Sunday morning, not really knowing anyone anymore!
Our bus driver asked us all if we wanted to make a detour to go for a walk near Mount Cook. Our answer was a big fat yes! Again, apparently at one point, they used to do this, so we were super lucky our driver decided to go against the grain and take us anyway.
The walk was along the very windy Hooker Valley at the base of the Mountain and provided amazing views. I definitely didn't come prepared enough for a 2.5 hour walk (I thought it was less than that!) and wore jeans and didn't save my water enough. Whoops.
We then arrived at the equally beautiful Lake Takepo. A bit too cold to swim but lovely stuff. The next morning all the English gathered to watch ENG vs SEN, we couldn't believe our luck that the hostel had sky sports. Sadly we had to leave during half time to go and visit a local church called The Church of the Good Shepherd. Which made me smile as it's the same name of the church my parents married at.
We arrived at our final Kiwi Bus destination, Christchurch, that afternoon. Christchurch is very much still a city under construction. In 2011 there was an earthquake that flattened much of the city centre. Much of it has since be rebuilt, but there are still huge gaps (now converted to car parks) everywhere and 2 remaining "holes" where the shells of buildings that had basement levels still remain.
Apart from moving hostels, we didn't do a whole bunch the following day apart from mooching round the shops. There's a trendy covered market with lots of delicious food places and, more importantly, free wine tasting, so we went to do that. I had been feeling a bit guilty having not visited a vineyard yet in NZ (hard to get to without a car!), so this made for a nice substitute and I promptly bought a bottle of the Pino Grigio.
The next day, we headed up the coast to a town called Kaikora. Again, the Kiwi buses do go there, but we couldn't get through to the head office to extend our ticket. Anyway, the main purpose of our trip was to go on a whale watching boat. Kaikora is famous for being a place (possibly one of the few in the world) where you can see whales, dolphins etc all year round. Annoyingly our trip was cancelled due to rough seas. The weather, despite being summer, was a bit minging still, so not a whole load to do instead.
The following morning, I headed out to go on a dolphin swimming cruise. Luckily this one hadn't been cancelled, but did come with a warning of severe sea sickness and for strong swimmers only. They asked me several times if I got sea sick, and I had bought a seasickness lolly just incase. I thought they were being a bit melodramatic, but lo and behold, at least 40% of passengers were holding buckets within 20mins. I was absolutely fine though, perhaps in part to inheriting good sea legs off my grandparents who worked in the merchant navy. It was an incredible experience! There were hundreds of dolphins at points, all swimming with you and wanting to play. They were having a whale (or dolphin in this case) of a time in the big waves. To attract the dolphins, we were advised to sing to them through our snorkels, and mirror their movements if they start circling you, wanting to play. It was quite funny hearing everyone sing when you stick your head above water. I'm not saying that the dolphins have any affiliation to a particular football team, but, when I did sing Arsenal songs to them, they seemed to like it. It was my highlight of my trip to NZ, and would definitely recommend to anyone with strong sea legs and good at swimming! Here's a link to a video.
We then returned back to Christchurch for our last couple of days. We went round the Museum of Canterbury, which was fairly forgettable, but did include a life-sized replica of "Shell Cottage" a once home turned tourist attraction which was covered from floor to ceiling in polished shells?! We visited the cardboard cathedral, erected in the wake of the earthquake. It's support beams are actually wooden, but pretty much everything else is made from reinforced cardboard which was cool. I also so went on the circular tram tour which was fun.
I went for the best brunch ever on the final morning and even caught the Argentina vs Netherlands penalty shoot out. Lovely stuff.
On to Australia!
Cardboard Cathedral
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