Christmas in the sun!

Kiwi's enjoying the snow!

After getting back to Carols we had great fun helping her out in the nursery, helping around the house or just even lying out in the sun. I even went and helped one of Carols friends shear some alpacas.
We also had some great times in Auckland going to see a naming ceremony for a big ferry at Auckland harbour and also visiting Devonport where they had a snow dome (just polystyrene not real snow) in the middle of this sunny field with coastal views. Really weird to be thinking that they were covered in the real stuff at home!

Beachy Christmas tree

We had some torrential rain whilst being up at Auckland and at Carol and Franks Bach in Mungawhai Heads. Which is good because it looked as if it was going to be a drought filled summer. But we did get some scorching days too. Really quite bazaar thinking that its Christmas when your walking round in nothing but shorts and a T-shirt.

Kay's awesome 12day advent calenders.

We spent Christmas up at the Bach and we had an awesome time despite having to keep pinching yourself to remind yourself that it was December and Christmas. Beth, Carol and I went through a very creative stage and made a beachy Christmas tree from a piece of drift wood and some shells etc. We also had a bit of a hitch up on Christmas day when Carol walked into the ranch slider and had to go to hospital (very new Bach, very clean windows!) She was fine just quite shaken up. But it didn't stop us having lots of fun and laughs that weekend.

Us and the cousins, Christmas day at the beach.

ZO

On the first day with Zo our camper we drove right up to Wellington. Stopping of in Kiakoura again to have lunch and say goodbye to the seals. And this time as we drove up the coast we saw some dolphins! I looked out to see and said "those are some really big fish jumping" and then Beth took her eyes of the road long enough to say "there dolphins, you idiot!" Was quite exciting seeing as we had hyped ourselves up for seeing dolphins last time we went to Kiakoura and were severely disappointed.

Then we stopped at Picton to have a thick shake and wait for our ferry (cookies and cream, not a nice thick shake flavour!). After we listen to this guy in a fluorescent jacket talk about didymo (or something like that?) we boarded the ferry. Great watching the sun go down over the cook straight. We then drove through wellington and got lost trying to find, Penny Menzies brothers' house, but found it in the end. Josef and Helen where really kind to us and let us stay the night on there driveway. We stayed up late talking about traveling and hearing lots of great stories.

We had breakfast with them the next morning then headed into Wellington to see Te Papa and have a walk around the capital. After lunch we headed north going through Parmeston North and heading up to New Plymouth we decided it would be to late to get to New Plymouth and dark so we couldn't see the beautiful drive, so we turned of at Strangford after having a Chinese takeaway, and headed up the forgotten highway. Such an amazing drive, we didn't meet a single car on the whole way and we could just stop and turn of the engine and there was complete silence. We spent that night in a DOC camp sight on the Wanganui river. I had a bit of a dip in the morning but it was so cold I didn't stay in long.

Then we kept heading North and stayed the next night at Wiakaretu. Took Addison for a ride in the camper which was hilarious. Her and Mattias had great fun climbing round in the back. That evening we went and watched the schools Christmas performance and there leavers show.

The Next day we headed for Auckland and met Carol at the place where we dropped of the camper.

Back to Christchurch

After Kiakoura we went back to Christchurch. Lina and Ingus picked us up from the bus and we went back with them and our German friends in the lodge at Living Springs. We stayed there fore about two weeks, we had such an amazing time helping out in the camp and cleaning up the lodge.

One night we went and had a BBQ with Jo and family great to see them all again and Carolyn too.

We also did lots of things for the lead up fr Christmas like decorating a Christmas tree with lots of random things we found in the lodge like playing cards, cutlery and a screwdriver etc. One evening we went down to a beech in the Lyttelton inlet and swam, really crazy to just be swimming in board shorts and not be feeling cold. We also had a Christmas party just before Beth and I left which was awesome fun with lots of great food and dancing.

We left early the morning after the party and went into Christchurch to pick up our camper van which we then had four days to drive up to Auckland.

Rocks that look like whales

From Nelson we caught our bus down to Kiakoura. We stayed in a backpackers called 'the lazy shag' and they tried to charge us or using the duvets,can you believe, but we convinced him out of that pretty quick! We stayed in Kiakoura for about five days, doing some amazing coastal walks and getting up real close and personal with some seals. Kiakoura is the dolphin and whale watching capital, really yet we saw none. We were wondering whether we should just take some pictures of some rocks out at see and just say they were whales because they were very convincing rocks.

Beth also had a crazy bump into someone she went to school with in the fish 'n' chip shop of all places.

 

We enjoyed Kiakoura but because it was coming to the end of our trip we didn't want to pay for the swimming with dolphins and whale flights just because money was looking a bit short. But we had some great walks and you can get so close to the seals it crazy.