Quit Dreaming and Go Somewhere

In Kaikoura, Jim signed up for the dolphin swimming and I signed up just to watch, since I am not “confident” in the water and it is stinkin’ cold. The next morning we got up early to go and it was so windy and wavy that they said if you ever might get seasick, you’d definitely get sick today. So I cancelled, and Jim cancelled too. So that was a bummer, but oh well. Kaikoura itself was gorgeous, too.
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So we left Nelson after a day and went to Blenheim, without any real idea of what to do. We didn’t kayak or do anything at the Abel Tasman park, mainly because we couldn’t get excited for it. It is almost winter here, too, so it is cold and the beaches aren’t much good.

So in Blenheim we decided to take another wine tour.
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We are currently in Nelson, the second biggest city on the south island. I am not ashamed to say that we were starving after the 4 hour drive and dying for McDonalds or Burger King. The town we were in last night, Westport, was so tiny and the only food there was from places called “cafe” or “takeways,” neither of which sound like nourishing, non-fried food. I don’t care what you say, but McDonalds is a sign of a civilized place! HARUMPH! And, it’s cheap. And, I don’t know if it was the Indian food or maybe the pate that Jim bought a few days ago went bad, but the night before I was hurtin’ and ready for something familiar.

So anyway, after the glacier we drove north to Hokitika, which is the greenstone (jade) capital of the country. I was excited to browse the shops in the tiny little town, but Jim wouldn’t have any of it and we drove another half hour to Greymouth, to a cool hostel called Noah’s Ark, where every room had an animal theme. Ours was a cow.

We also went to a Monteith’s Brewery tour. It is a very small west coat brewery here. It was neat and worth the money just to try all their varieties of beer. When I got back to the hostel I took a nap.

Anyway, I heard there were places where you can carve jade and stone jewelry. I thought it would be so neat to make my own cool thing, from my own hands. And I was getting all these visions of being a natural and becoming a master carver and opening a shop in NYC and all the famous people would come in and I would show them how to carve their own stuff and I would sell beautiful jewelry. Either that or I will be a chef. I had pumpkin, feta, and corn fritters with sweet chili sauce the other day that I HAVE to learn how to make at home; they were awesome.

Anyway, the next morning I went to a place in Hokitika called Stonz N Bonz. I decided to carve bone because it was a lot cheaper than jade. The teacher dude was named Steve and he was very good. He would help you but mostly let you do it yourself. There is another place in town and everyone says that guy practically does it all for you.

So me and two French girls were there and we looked thru some designs and picked out what we wanted. I wished I had thought more and designed my own, because that would have been really special.

Then you chose a piece of beef bone that is thick enough and not ugly. Then trace the design onto the bone and put it in a vice and with a hand saw you cut off big chunks. if you do jade, you have totally different tools that look much cooler. Like a grinder thing that runs with water on it and stuff.

Next you use a spinning machine with rough sandpaper to get closer to the pencil lines. Then a spinning hand tool with tons of different drill bits that either cut, make holes, or smooth. First you drill tiny holes in places where your design is open, then continue grinding and drilling for hours and making the edges round.

When it looks pretty good (your hand will be tired) you go back to the spinning sander machine and use progressively finer and finer sandpapers all over the bone until you get to “2000” sandpaper.

After that, you rub metal polish on it and he puts a fluffy cloth thing on the spinner and you use that to buff it. The last step is to rub oil on the bone and then he strings on the cord for the necklace.

Here it is! Pic is a bit blurry though.

Poor Jim thought I would only be there 3 hours, so he stayed in Hokatika. It ended up being 5 hours and he was SO bored!! Poor guy.

Then we drove to Westport and on the way in Punakaiki there are pancake rocks and blowholes. The coolest thing is when the water hits the rocks and it shoots up out of these “blowholes,” which are fissures in the rocks. We saw some mist shoot out of one, and that was neat. Of course just the short walk to the shore to see them was amazingly beautiful like EVERYthing is in this darn country.

Average west coast scenery.

Right before we arrived in Westport, there were signs for a seal colony, so we thought, what the heck, and we went there. We walked a ways on the path, thinking they wouldn’t be there this time of the year, and sure enough, there were about 20 seals hanging out on the rocks below and grunting and scotting around. Pretty neat!

Earlier, on the road, there was a caution sign earlier for penguins, but I didn’t see any. We did see some funny flightless birds called…..shoot, I forgot. A weka or something.

The next morning we drove straight through 4 hours here to Nelson. On the way is the biggest swing bridge in NZ, which is over the Buller Gorge. It was neat.

Here is some lady on it.

The plan was next to go kayaking at the Abel Tasman National Park, but it is so chilly and rainy that neither of us are too excited for it. We might go on another wine tour.

Our car has to be back in Christchurch on the 18th, so we’ve actually got loads of time and are only looking forward to Kaikoura, just north of Christchurch. Then we fly to Auckland and we’re planning on just 10 days for the north island, then it’s about 5 days in Rarotonga and only a couple days in Tahiti, then to LA and home!

Well, I can now say that I walked on a glacier. Big whoop! It is one of only 4 glaciers that are next to, um, temperate rainforests or something. In the world. The two here are the Fox Glacier and the Franz Joseph and the other ones are in Patagonia. (South America)
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BEST thing: Sydney and snorkeling on the reef. Also, OPORTO BONDI BURGERS!!

WORST thing: The fact that every deadly insect and animal is in Australia and even in the cities. (i.e., funnel spider). Enormous spiders and insects are everywhere, lots of mosquitos. You always have to watch out. Also, LONG bus rides.
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We finally left Queenstown after two days and didn’t do ANY “extreme” activities. Paragliding or whatever it is called sounded great. And Jim wanted to white water raft or go river sledging but it just wasn’t the right time of the year and we figure we can do it somewhere else, maybe.

The last two nights we went out to the pubs and it was pretty fun. Last night was with an American couple who had been teaching English in Japan for 2 years. The night before was an American guy who was living and working in Queenstown for a while. One bar was really cool because when it got hot, the roof opened up!! Even when it was sprinkling outside! It was great because it got *so* hot in there.
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I hate that I can’t use the internet more, because I know I will forget stuff if I don’t write it down. Not only is it hard to even find internet cafes sometimes, it is quite expensive.

So……. we’ve done a lot and gone pretty far since Mt. Cook.

We drove down the east coast, stopped in Oamaru for lunch, and then spent two nights in Dunedin. (pronounced Dun-Eden. Not Doon-adin.) It was a neat little college town and it has the steepest street in the world. But we didn’t see it. Heh heh.

We met a super friendly Kiwi girl in the Kathmandu store and talked to her for a while. She said how when 9-11 happened she was terrified and had nightmares. It was interesting to hear her perspective on things.

When we were there, Jim went to a Speight’s brewery tour. I was very excited to go to the Cadbury tour, but so mant people told me it was a rip-off, so I didn’t go. That was a bummer. But we did see Kill Bill 2, which Jim has been dying to see.
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The funniest thing happened here yesterday. Apparently there was this famous sheep named Shrek, and yesterday there was a half-hour special on TV where they sheared him.
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So we decided to rent a car in Christchurch, drive around the south island, then return it to Christchurch. We have a flight to the north island and we will do that afterwards in a shorter period of time.

We left Christchurch with our first destination being Mt. Cook. New Zealand doesn’t have that many roads, which makes it easy to navigate but sometimes you have to go around stuff to get places. In this case, Mt. Cook is actually much closer to the west side of the island, but since there are mountains, you have to get there from the east side.

Jim is the driver since I don’t have a license with me and driving on the other side of the road freaks me out.

As soon as we started driving, it was apparent that it was going to be TOTALLY AWESOME to drive outselves where ever we want, when ever we want. No more waiting for the bus to come and having to stay a night whenever you stop. We can stop somewhere for a few hours and leave. It is GREAT!!

The roads are pretty empty so Jim did just fine with the driving. After a while, we start seeing mountains ad tons of sheep, cows, and what looked like deer. The landscape was pretty cool. At one point, we go around a corner or up a hill, and when the scenery comes into view, we are just like WOW!! And we pull over and jump out to look and take photos. I have so many great pictures I can’t even decide which to show!!

Suddenly, we looked ahead and there were about a million sheep walking across the road and we drove right behind them. It was surreal. Here is a pretty neat picture of it from the car.

Take a look at the cover of our Lonely Planet guide. Pretty weird, huh?

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I have a lot to post about, since in the last couple of days we haven’t had net access. We went to Lake Tekapo, Mt. Cook and are now in Dunedin. Driving is GREAT and I’m so glad we decided to do it. All I have to say is that I’ve seen the most beautiful scenery of my entire life since we’ve been driving in New Zealand. It is just absolutely stunning!! I can’t wait to tell you more and show pictures!