New Zealand: Day 21 & 22

So, we’re home now, after our 30+ hours of travel- but we thought you’d like to know what we did our last couple days in NZ. Enjoy!

Day 21: Auckland

Get ready for some adorableness! For our last couple of days in NZ, we spent our time in Auckland before our flight back to the US. We decided to spend one of the days with Stu and Donna!

Stu and Donna have been giving Auckland tours for 15 years now and offer a one-of-akind experience to anyone who’d like to not have to drive or worry about anything. Part of their tour is going to their farm and tasting jams, cheeses, fruits, etc. They even let you pet their sheep and birds! We can’t recommend this tour highly enough, and it’d be a great way to start your NZ tour off, if you’re starting in Auckland.

Sheeps!

Such a happy farm

The first stop on the tour was a lovely winery just west of Auckland

Can you tell what those little black dots are? They’re surfers!

Second stop was a seabird colony whose babies were alllmoossst ready to fly

Beautiful beaches- this was a “slow day” for waves lol

The sand in this area is all black ash sand from a volcano eruption lonnnng ago. Pretty cool!

The severity of the cliffs are just gorgeous

Near the beach we saw a cool cave

Next stop was hanging out at Stu and Donna’s farm

We got a sheepdog demonstration

We also saw how all the wool is processed

We nerded out about wool processing

Pavlova with Kiwi was on the menu for our tea. It was fantastic.

Auckie the turkey!

Donna rescues birds, this one happened to have lice terribly bad in her youth and scratched her eyes out. She’s 21 years old now, though and very talkative!

We had dinner at a Mexican Cafe in Auckland that was kind of close to our Mexican food in the states. By this point we were just hankering for something from home and were happy to find it similar. We also had to get on the road to Whangerei (where we were staying that night) just as the Westerly Winds started to pick up. That was a scary drive!

Day 22: Change in plans

The view from our AirBnB that night

Some cows prohibited us from driving for a bit

We had driven to Whangerei to be close to Adventure World, where the “most difficult mini golf course” is said to be found. However we had awoken to a lovely high wind set of showers that weren’t suppose to end for another day or so. We decided to hightail it back to Auckland and check out some fabric stores and the Auckland Art Gallery.

I got to see some real George Romney paintings!

The space alone is exquisite

We made it to several fabric storese, but none of them had what I was looking for. At around 4:07pm, we came to our last (the biggest one) and they had closed at 4pm. SAD DAY. So that day was just us be-bopping around Auckland, not taking many pictures. So sorry! We got some takeaway sushi (pretty good) and got back to the AirBnB to pack and sleep before we left.

They had teryaki chicken, crunchy fish and a few odd ones, but they were tasty!

Auckland (picture taken the day before, when it was sunny)

Trip Conclusion:

In reminiscing about our trip, we wouldn’t have changed a thing. We had a great time, everyone was super nice and it was definitely an experience of a lifetime.

Our plan is to create a series of posts within the next couple of weeks with information about cost, how we planned it, tips on traveling in and around, etc. to help out anyone who might be thinking of spending some time in NZ. I found that most of the information I was coming across was more geared toward the hitchhiker or camping type person.

If there are any questions or topics you’d like us to post on, please comment! I want to be as helpful as I can to you all!

**We are not endorsed by any of the companies we’ve linked in our posts- we just want you to be able to find their information should you come along to NZ**

New Zealand: Day 17 & 18

Are you prepared for copious amounts of marine mammals?!

Day 17: Kaikoura

One of the “Must Do” activities on most New Zealand websites is to swim with the dolphins in Kaikoura, on the east coast of the South Island. Now, I’m not a fan of the open ocean- let alone when the area you’re swimming in is an UNDERWATER CANYON. I’m also not a fan of dolphins, as I think they’re probably too smart for their own good and are bigger than I am. So I wasn’t truly looking forward to this particular activity.

Ian, on the other hand, was super stoked about the idea of getting to swim with a bunch of dolphins BECAUSE they’re smart and BECAUSE we’re on the open ocean and BECAUSE they’re as big as he is. So we had differing opinions on the subject.

I am, however, so glad that we did it. It was an amazing experience and there’s no way you can be prepared for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ9HBrbwZZM

(Here’s what it looks like under the water *note- not my video, but this is what we saw while swimming!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOXoE9280Ck

So many dusky dolphins!

Ian looks like a weird sea lion here.

You can tell much better in the video, but over one hundred dolphins belong to this pod

They got super close to the boat

They love to jump/summersault in the air

Here’s a good summersault pic

I’m so grossly pale!

I had a baby dolphin nearly slap me in the face with its tale. Very rude.

Babies jumping!

This is the bay the dolphins hang out in. It’s some underwater canyon that holds a ton of food for them to eat- they say there are whales way deep down there.

After the dolphin swim, we were pretty exhausted, but had a couple more stops we wanted to make to local art galleries and shops. We had also heard there was a seal colony somewhere close so we went there, too. It’s called the Ohau Waterfall Walk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs0i9HMluBE

Babies!

They come within a couple of feet close to you

Ian sure got some good photos!

Sleepin’ baby

Sleepin’ pup

This is the Ohau Waterfall, where the pups come to play. We got there late in the season, but there were still plenty to hang out with

Views from the road

At the shoreline, the rest of the colony was sunbathing

Ian was very good at getting pictures of the waves crashing.

We headed to Blenheim after that but had dinner in Picton at a place called Thai Panda– which was really good!

Day 18: Havelock

Havelock was on our list because of the Mussels and Seafood Festival. I love mussels, Ian loves mussels, we love food. It was great! It was also a much better bargain for your buck since they had meal portioned foods rather than just samples. We really loved this festival a lot.

Havelock- the Mussel Capital of NZ!

We ate some yummy cheesecakes

Some fantastic seafood platters

Watched some serious shuckers shucking their way into the Guinness Book of World Records

Witnessed lots of people supporting so-so cover bands

Ate lots of seafood

Lobtster Chowder

And got crumbs all over our faces.

We finished there around 1:30pm and were sufficiently full. But we were in the heart of NZ wine country! We elected to take the Marlborough Wine Trail and try some wines- we had a great time! Ian chauffeured me around since he doesn’t drink and I bought some really interesting wines from the Fromm Winery and the Huia Vineyards.

Wineries all over the place.

Vines.

That night we took it easy and wanted a taste of home so we got some Burger King (the closest tasting to our fast food chains of all the ones we’ve tried) and I slept when we got home because wine.

Next up: Even more driving.

**We are not endorsed by any of the companies we’ve linked in our posts- we just want you to be able to find their information should you come along to NZ**

New Zealand: Day 15 & 16

Day 15: Getting to Dunedin

Not a ton happened on the way from Queenstown to Dunedin other than we saw way more sheep than we anticipated and ended up driving on a dangerous gravel road for over a half an hour (GPS glitch, go figure).

There were lots of sheep.

When we got to Dunedin, we had just enough time to catch a tour through the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. It costs a mere $20, and they give you a LOT of chocolate. Pictures weren’t allowed during the tour but we can tell you that they give you a lot of chocolate- and not the chocolates you’ll necessarily like. All the weird marshmallow chocolates you can think of, and they’re not that tasty to American Tastebuds.

So much chocolate was had- they literally had a spicket of it!

After our tour we checked in with our AirBnB then headed to the Otago Museum. It was fantastic. We definitely encourage anyone to go there if you’re in Dunedin… especially since it’s free!

Somehow we managed to only take photos of the animals in this museum. There was a LOT more to it, but I guess we were having too good a time to take pics.

Evil thing.

The taxidermy for most of these were REALLY old

I wonder if that’s how it looks in the wild?

An item that had been on Ian’s list of things to check out was The Beverly Clock invented in 1864. This clock is basically a perpetual motion machine that only requires a 6 degree change in temperature to create the energy to run. It’s run steadily, with no problems, since it was built 152 years ago.

Wow!

We ate dinner at Etrusco who had some really great dishes. Ian got the Seafood Marinara and I got the Pumpkin Ravioli. Everything was delicious and they had a great Cab/Syrah blend to go with it that was soooooo velvety. So good.

MMMMM

We finished our day out with the steepest residential street in the world! Balwin Street is no joke. Ian managed to drive our rental car up it, but I didn’t think it would make it the full way up. The street itself is 35o meters long and is a really tough hike just to get up half way.

Quite steep

You can’t really tell but it takes a while to walk this.

Back at our room for the night, I worked on an 18th century quilted petticoat for Felicity and Ian played his DS. We’re pretty cool people.

Day 16: Dunedin to Kaikoura

Plans weren’t to stay in Dunedin that long, but the aesthetic of the city is a lot like what we’re used to- old buildings, lots of history, lots of things happening, art galleries, museums, etc. I’d say it’s my favorite city to have visited so far.

The 3rd most photographed building in the southern hemisphere, the Train Station

Pretty gingerbread everywhere!

We had booked a tour of the Olveston House, a historic home that belonged to a very prominent family in Dunedin. Again, pictures weren’t allowed inside, but it was definitely worth going on if you like that sort of thing. There was a little greenhouse out the back of the place we stopped to snap some pretty pictures.

The side view of the home

This is the side the greenhouse was on

There were a few art galleries to check out before we left, but lunch time rolled around and we thought we should get a “taste of home” by checking out what KFC’s taste like here… wrong move. Not that NZ KFC is terrible, but it surely didn’t taste like what we were used to. They offer the $5 meal which I wrongly assumed was the same as the 5-buck-lunch and Ian got a Hawaiian Chicken Sandwich. He didn’t think the sandwich was all that great and let me show you how much popcorn chicken I got for my value meal:

I’d say there were about 9 wee pieces of chicken.

They also have potato fries that are coated in a chicken boullion/salt mixture and offer a weird ketchup that has a nuance of barbecue flavoring as well as some ginger mixed in….Not our favorite thing in the world.

At some point we stumbled upon the Moeraki Boulders. This things are SO cool.

They look like a video game type of scenery

So round.

There are more under the sand

Apparently, when they open they look like this.

They’re a weird concrete/composition of things that have been weathered down by the coast

Innards.

Ian got stuck

Victorious.

Don’t fall in!

There were lots of people to see them but we managed some no-people pictures

The water color never shows up as true in photos. The water is an lovely blue irl

Ian kept saying they had to be dinosaur eggs- that’s the only possible explanation

Watch out for the graboids!

I managed to sprain my ankle and crash to the ground when we stopped off at a shop along the way- thankfully no one was looking. Shortly after, there was another town worth stopping at called Oamaru, otherwise known as the Steampunk Capital of NZ. We naturally went to almost every shop they had as well as the Steampunk Museum– VERY worthwhile.

The shops were so cool!

Everything you can imagine!

Oamaru

Ian found a stole he liked.

Steampunk Headquarters!

Outside was like MadMax

Ian driving the death train

Death train.

You could actually pick up that thing at the bottom with the manual crane

Most of the towns in NZ don’t look like this- they all look more modern

“The Portal”

Some fun sculptures

The whole place was interactive

We drove another 4 hours until we stopped- not much to see on this drive that we hadn’t already- and ended up at a cafe/bar place where I misunderstood something and ended up with a huge amount of Speight’s beer to go along with my mussel chowder. Ian just laughed as he ate his fish ‘n chips. No harm done in the end.

I somehow drank this in an hour

Aren’t we done yet?! Nope. Next up: Lots of marine animals.

**We are not endorsed by any of the companies we’ve linked in our posts- we just want you to be able to find their information should you come along to NZ**

New Zealand: Day 11 & 12

Day 11: Greymouth & Hokitika

We stayed in Greymouth for the night before heading out to the Wildfoods Festival. The waves there are crazy!

The Greymouth waves were crazy!

The wind was also blowing the waves back which made for a cool effect

Greymouth was an interesting town, the layout wasn’t really like most of the NZ towns we’ve been in

The giant street of Greymouth

We took a quick detour on the way to check out a little ol’ place called Shantytown:

Definitely worth going on Art Day! ($5 entry tickets)

Train ride

Train engine

Big tree

Art day held a bunch of artists from the Hokitika/Greymouth area

Old people goldpanning

Sawmill exhibit

It was very cute

Art shows!

What an outfit!

Post office!

The “ChinaTown” part of Shantytown was really interesting

We wanted to learn more but everything was in Chinese!

Then we arrived at The Wildfoods Festival! Since 1990, thousands have flocked to Hokitika to taste the crazy things that humans can eat; like Crocodile, Seagull, Testicles, Kangaroo, etc. We ate a lot.

Fried huhu grubs

Live huhu grubs!

down the hatch

–Tastes like wood.

Fried mealworm

Tastes like fried wood

Fried duck bits, which we did not eat

Crowds.

Bull testical sandwich!

Mountain Oysters AKA Bull Testicals!

Delicious.

Kangaroo bites (Almost the best thing there!)

Snails and crackers

Slimey

Hardboiled Seagull egg

So big!

Ian said the egg was really rubbery

All the meats! Wallaby and Goat tasted THE BEST- so good.

LAMB BRAINS

Crowds

Hokitika has a ton of really cool shops and a few museums to pop into. We went into the Hokitika Museum for a little bit and had a great time learning about Whitefish: New Zealand’s Favorite Fish!

Museum time!

What an outfit!

Some fun artifacts

Whitebait information!!!!!!

From Hokitika we headed south toward Franz Josef Glacier to where we were staying. Seeing the glaciers weren’t really part of our plan, but we got to our AirBnB sooner than we planned so we took the hike. Are we ever glad we did!

It was really foggy that day

Ian walking

The river was a really weird grey color

Glacier Ice Balls caught on the rocks

The rocks are so cool here!

Don’t go in there.

This was not photoshopped in any way

So tall!

Our glacier pictures were hard to photograph, because the sun was actually shining on the glacier thus blowing out our pictures

Cool moss growing everywhere

Majestic.

This isn’t the Franz Josef Glacier but can you imagine living here!?

Just photos from around the area

Awesomely huge rocks

Cool rocks!

High fives!

Dinner was had at the SnakeBite Brewery where we split a great sandwich called the “KFC: Krispy Fried Chicken Sandwich” which was an Asian Fusion delight with a bourbon-coke bbq sauce, red cabbage slaw and bacon. It was goooooood. We’ve also noticed anytime we get french fries (pretty common around here) the ketchup tastes vastly different than ours. I swear there’s ginger or another spice in there. It’s actually pretty good!

MMMMM So good! The KFC Burger from SnakeBite!

Day 12: Wanaka

As you can tell, most of this trip is just driving along this beautiful island- and there’s bound to be more in coming posts. At Wanaka, we’re nearing the southernmost part of our trip to turn tail and head back to the northernmost point. So, we’re just taking in what the South Island has to offer.

The journey from Hokitika to Wanaka was kind of uneventful- we weren’t able to look at all the pretty mountains because it was really foggy and rainy out. We could tell there were mountains there, but couldn’t tell just how high they were. Here’s a few photos from the internets on the real place:

ALERT: Not my photo.

So much fog.

So many clouds.

This is what we really saw

We did manage to hit the Blue Pools on our way, which were on our list of things to see to begin with. The overcast sky made them not as blue as photos make them seem, but they sure are pretty. Also, I want to let you all know that Kiwi “easy” hikes are NOT what we’re used to. They’re more on the medium/hard hike level because EVERYTHING IS UPHILL!

So blue!

The forest is an “old growth” which we haven’t seen much until now due to excessive logging in the areas we’d been in

Big tree!

There was a large group of people jumping from the bridge, ruining my photos!

This was another one of those “easy” New Zealand walks. Let me inform you, Kiwi easy is REALLY hard.

Stump

The pathways were REALLY narrow and often only had one railing with the other side being a dropoff.

So steep!

When we arrived in Wanaka, we went to Puzzling World to check out what they have- crazy illusions and a giant maze. Ian was quite pleased…. my brain, however, was a bit broken.

Going down or up!?

Insane Skilz

This was an awesome affect using inverted forms and light to create 3-D faces!

Illusion glass

This room was cool but we couldn’t get the perspective right

The bathrooms were fun

Ian figured out a puzzle!

Here’s the maze. It took a long time to complete

Look at that super human strength!

Dinner was had at Sailz in Lake Hawea where Ian had a steak and I had a salmon fillet. It was pretty good and the closest to home cooking we’ve had since we got here.

Here are a couple more photos of our drive:

What could possibly be next?! A hike we probably shouldn’t have taken

**We are not endorsed by any of the companies we’ve linked in our posts- we just want you to be able to find their information should you come along to NZ**

New Zealand: Day 9 & 10

The next few days are going to be full of full on driving and a few stops along the way- but luckily this place is so gosh-darn beautiful it doesn’t matter!

Day 9: Picton Ferry to Christchurch

Our day consisted of a 3.5 hour ride on the Interislander in the Cook Straight between the north and south islands then a 4.5 hour drive to Christchurch.

The Interislander Ferry docked at Wellington

It’s a big boat.

Into the belly!

This is Picton on the South Island as we were approaching

Our already long trip was lengthened a bit when we came across a backed up traffic due to a car fire turned brush fire. We waited for well over an hour to get by. To our knowledge, no one was hurt and the area (which was at extreme danger level for forest fires) was put out quickly.

Just one of the MANY, MANY campers we were behind.

Semi all burned up

Over on this hill is where the fire blew up to, there were 2 helicopters and tons of fire brigades to help put it out

For dinner, we ate McDonald’s (not as good as back home) and some left over Pizza Hut from lunch (also not as good) but hey, not everything is perfect!

Day 10: Christchurch

While in Christchurch, we were sure to stop at the amazing Canterbury Museum they have in the middle of town. As a natural history museum of New Zealand, it had some absolutely awesome stuff- like Moa fossils and a ton of Maori artifacts. And it was FREE!

Moa.

Moa can be big,

Moa can be small!

A collection of fish hooks and other impliments used by the Maori people

And a collection of needles made from bone

These are pictures from the last of the Moriori people- the first peoples to live in New Zealand

This looks like a more modern quilt to your eyes but you’d be wrong. It’s a feather cape from the Maori

Amazing.

Awesome sculptures

Some scrimshaw art

Then there’s the Paua House which has so many shells it’s ridiculous

An ivory Napoleon for all of your conquering needs

a small display of whales and their sizes

The geology section they have here is fantastic

A sea cucumber that’s been fossilized into some other mineral

They even have an area to view the rocks under different wavelengths of light

Ooooo

This is an albatross.

Kiwis

Whoever did the taxidermy for the birds here is fantastic

Ian on a big cycle.

THEN we went fabric shopping to a couple of places and I got some really lovely fabric for 18th century millinery. Ian also bought some fabric that was much pricier- moral of the story is: Look at the price per meter (or yard) before cutting your fabric.

Some of the odd sites along the way- A car AND train bridge (scary)

These areas were along the side of a mountain- and if you’ve not noticed from previous photos, there’s a HUGE dropoff (more than 100ft at least) below.

Beautiful sites.

Conquering Arthur’s Pass

Lakes and mountains

Mountains and mountains

More mountains

We took off and headed toward Greymouth and happened to stop at Castle Hill along the way. This place is magical and we were there for over 2 hours just hiking and taking in the spectacle it is.

This place is gorgeous.

Ian’s up there bein’ tiny

Most of the trek was nearly straight up hill

D’awwww

Rockbridge

The terrain once you’re up there is really interesting

We walked to the top of Castle Hill to see the other sites from a higher vantage point, I thought I was going to die. Here’s Ian bein’ tiny and determined

This is looking nearly straight up from a lower spot on Castle Hill

The boulders are huge!

The other rocks you see in the first pictures from behind while we were on Castle Hill

Ian being silly

Another 2+ hours to go and we arrived at Greymouth! We ate at a place called Ali’s Eating and Drinking which had a fantastic Butter Chicken Curry Pie (they have “Pie Fridays” which are savory pies but chef’s choice- we highly recommend it) We also decided to purchase one of the pieces of art in their gallery for our living room and happened to be sitting right next to the artist! How cool is that?

What’s to come? Some wild foods and a big ol’ glacier.

**We are not endorsed by any of the companies we’ve linked in our posts- we just want you to be able to find their information should you come along to NZ**