Well, it’s been a very busy week.  Internet access is not the most reliable and can be very expensive depending on where we are… so…  here’s an update.

We arrived safely in Christchurch after many delays but with all of our luggage which is what we are focusing on.  We spent a week in Ch’church getting organized.  We signed a lease on a lovely little two bedroom cottage a block from the beach and bought a car.  We had to get used to the more laid back approach the Kiwi’s take to life so when things were not working out exactly how we’d planned there was a general, “no worries – we’ll get to it later”.  

The people are super friendly and we’ve had a blast.  The metro system in Ch’church is amazing and we were all over the city with some lovely bus drivers acting as tour guides.  

We’ve been to the Moeraki Boulders where these crazy perfectly spherical boulders stick up out of the beach and surf where we also met a lovely choc lab by the name of Havoc who met us in the parking lot and carried on with us for the whole of our visit.  Will was quite take with Havoc (they probably share the same thought patterns) and by the end of our visit he wanted to bring the dog along with us.  Havoc, I am glad to say, is home with his owners and not a fifth wheel to our adventure. We also stopped at a knitwear factory where they make the most amazing and beautiful things.  It was a bit of a back road adventure, but we found it and are glad we did – a fraction of what it was selling for in the shops in Ch’church and even down the road at a tourist stop.

Today we toured Dunedin which is on the Otago Peninsula.  The city is designed to replicate the architecture of Edinburgh, Scotland so it feels very old compared to its actual age.  Tomorrow we are headed over to the peninsula where they have an albatross colony and the protected yellow eyed penguin.  We are looking forward to it.  We will then head down (on Friday) to Invercargill on the southern tip of the south island and take a ferry over to Stewart Island.  We are considering a two day tramping around the island but will see how things go in terms of spirits among the troops.  After that we head north along the western coast to Te Anau and Milford Sound to explore Fiordland.  

Other than that we are getting used to driving on the left side of the road and as we turn left there is a chant among the navigators, “HUG THE CURB” (done in a very bad NZ accent) or to the right, “UP AND AROUND”.  

Thanks for checking out our blog.  We will try to update it more often but we are at the mercy of the Internet servers along the way and the different wireless service available to us.  Very frustrating at times, but we’re learning to deal.

 

~Sarah