Laziness on Labour Day

Hello blog readers! Only 35 days to go until I leave Christchurch! Which means less than two more months of this blog. I have some big insightful posts coming up. I've been reading some non fiction books and have been inspired to share my knowledge! 

After we leave Christchurch, Cam and I are driving up to the North Island and I'm flying home from Auckland right before Christmas. I'm really happy to be going home to family and friends, but sad to leave New Zealand and also sad to leave this blog. It's been fun to share my experiences and think about them in a story telling way :) 

But more about that in "less than two months" when I sign off one last time.

Flying past Kaikoura on my way to Waiheke Island
These are the beautiful glacial braided rivers of Canterbury!
(Stay tuned for that post)

This post is actually a follow up from my previous one. I mentioned at the end of my post about Lions, Tigers, and Sheep (Oh my) that I was going to be swimming with seals the following weekend. Well I went up on Labour Day Monday and we did it. It was definitely cold, but it was so worth it and SO much fun.

The seal swim was up in Kaikoura about two and a half hours north of Christchurch. I had only been to Kaikoura once (!) and it was actually about this time last year. I just drove through with two coworkers on our way to Golden Bay, got a coffee, and kept going. I remember thinking it was stunning, and I knew I would have to go back at some point to actually check Kaikoura off my bucket list.

Kaikoura last year - not my best photo, but you get it

Luckily I'm addicted to instagram and several NZ Instagrammers including Youngadventuress and ChristchurchNZ have been really promoting these excursions recently. I asked my friend Jess if she wanted to try it and then she, I, and two other friends signed up.

And here begins all the photos that are not my own..
Sucker for instagram advertising apparently. Oops.

We got so lucky with the weather and Iona and I had an awesome drive up north - stopping to eat brunch at an outdoor cafe - and made it to Kaikoura right on time. We met up with Jess and her friend, Naja, and thats when the fun started. 

The guides at Seal Swim Kaikoura sized us up and gave us really serious wet suits to wear. Those things are HARD to get on. Iona, being the tiny lady that she is, had to wear THREE wet suits. And I thought my life was hard.

 Once we were all suited up, they instructed us to "strut down the street to the van". Unfortunately they also told us not to bring any phones or cameras unless they were waterproof, so I missed the opportunity to document us in our wetsuits, strutting through Kaikoura.

Maybe that's us on the boat?
Side note - Cam and I watched Castaway the night before
and I made him promise not to get stranded on any island
when I left the house that morning .... and then I found myself
on this boat...

On the way to the boat, which would take us to the seal swim area, they told us a little bit about the nature and history of our excursion, which I really liked. Turns out that the seals we have in Kaikoura (look at me, taking ownership of New Zealand's wildlife) are New Zealand fur seals, which means they have two layers of fur to keep them warm. He said its basically like they're wearing a wet suit AND a sleeping bag. This allows them to go 200 m below the surface of the water. They overheat out of the water, so they have to go deep under water to regulate their temperature and they evolved to do that at night so that they don't have to go thaaat deep - 30 m I believe. (I think this is what he said, but I can't remember exactly why they have to go down at night). At any rate, his point was that while the fur seals look really lazy, they actually just do their active time opposite to us. Turns out they're not that lazy!

They also told us that the cliffs in Kaikoura are made of limestone, which erodes really nicely, leaving the bays and platforms for the seals that they like so much. Another reason Kaikoura is perfect.

This is the peninsula that we drove around on the boat.
See all the areas for seals to rest?

Another fun fact - I was home watching David Attenborough's Life Story (It's his latest series and if you haven't watched it you totally should. Each episode is a stage of life, so the first episode was ALL baby animals taking their first steps, and the second episode was learning to be independent from their moms. So good! Can't wait for next Sunday at 7:30. Anyway...) and one of the last animals they featured were the New Zealand fur seal babies IN KAIKOURA. I was so excited. 

He was talking about how the first time the baby seals try to enter the ocean in Kaikoura, there are so many dangers, so the fur seals in Kaikoura actually swim upstream about 20 kilometers to a little pool of water at the base of a water fall. Then they all hang out until theyre ready to go back - also I think until they get hungry, because there can't be much to eat there. 

The guide on the seal swim told us that the seals are pretty territorial (on the rock I think because they were fine in the water ) and they like to hold an area. They aren't considered "socially mature" until they can defend their own area. I guess they don't have this problem at the pools.

David Attenborough highlighted the fact that noone knows how they find this pool, because they make the trip once - so its not like they see other seals coming and going all the time. I thought that was pretty awesome and was so happy that by the time I watched this special I had already seen the baby seal pool and swum with big seals in the wild!

So anyway, now that you know all the background information, I'll give you a brief summary of what its like to swim with seals.

Just one more photo of the beautiful place that is Kaikoura

First of all there were eight or nine people in the group so they managed to find two areas that were perfect for observing some seal activity and let us split up in to the groups we came with. We each got a guide who helped us spot the seals and he swam with a giant kick board that Naja got to hold on to, so that was really nice too.

The seals didn't mind us in the water and swam around us for the most part. A few of them swam a few meters a way but a lot of them came within a meter of me! As we swam a little longer we started to notice that a lof of them were chasing each other. Our guide told us it was "that time of year" so it was mostly boys chasing girls. I don't think many of them were very successful.

We floated around (wet suits let you float) and put our heads under when a seal came near and stared at them, and swum with them. It was pretty cool. But just as we were all getting a little cold and a little tired the best thing happened! The biggest seal I had seen all day, swam right up to me, maybe a foot a way, and just stayed there. Kind of moved its backside in circles so it could stay relatively in the same spot and we got to really look at the seal in the wild. Those eyes! They were so big. Honestly, even if I had my camera I was way to excited to take any pictures. After that happened we knew it wasn't going to get any better, so we hailed down the boat and got out of the freezing cold water.

THOSE EYES.

And as if anything could top an up close encounter with a New Zealand fur seal..... They let us pour hot water down our wetsuits. This is a feeling you'll never understand til you do it. Just do it.

And that was it! Then we took the boat/van back to Kaikoura, shared a pizza,  did a little souvenier shop, and drove all the way back to Christchurch.

"Those mountain layers..."

I hear ya, Young Adventuress. And that's why I bought.. THIS.

I love you seals, maybe I'll see you again one day!

Also thanks, Instagram for the idea and the photos!

What Almost Happened on the Way to Golden Bay

This weekend I got out of town with two coworkers for my first real weekend trip (since my attempt to go to the west coast didn't go so well.. ) Tina, Jason, and I decided to drive up to the Nelson area. Nelson is a city near the northern tip of the South Island. It's pretty far away, so most of the trip consisted of driving, and stopping for a hike in a few places.

We decided to drive up the east coast from Christchurch on Saturday morning, and our first stop was Kaikoura. Kaikoura is a beautiful, bright blue bay with a stunning background of snow capped mountains. It was hard to catch both in one picture but I tried.. A bunch of people in the office came up here the weekend before I got to New Zealand, and talked about how beautiful it was, so I was excited to see it. Definitely lived up to the hype.

About 20 km north of Kaikoura, there is a seal colony! We pulled over to see them, and saw (according to our guidebooks) 100 seals. I didn't count that many, but that's ok. On the other side of the highway was a trail that lead to the base of a waterfall where the seal pups play. It was incredible how close the seal pups came to people, but they were moving way too fast for a close up photo. One pup climbed up a hill next to the pool and was looking back at us. Others were playing together and jumping out of the water like flying fish. I didn't know seals did either of those things, but it was so fun to watch.

Pup coming up to see his friends

If you look closely you can see a ton of seals. This is the little pool they all gather in.

We got back in the car and drove north through wine country, to Blenheim. A group of coworkers are going to Blenheim next weekend, and I can't go because of other travel plans, so  I wanted to check it out. We planned to stop and get lunch, but the downtown of Blenheim only had a McDonalds and a Burger King, so, disappointed in the town, we drove on. 

Around 1:30 (left ChCh at 7 am) we finally got to Nelson! Nelson was beautiful! It was the cute coastal town I've been searching for. Jason and Tina had recently been to Queenstown and Dunedin (two other South Island cities) so they were not as shocked to see a nice place as I was, but it really made us all reflect on the current state of Christchurch. I was amazed to see a thriving downtown area, full of tourists and locals walking around. Christchurch's main tourist district was severely damaged during the earthquake, and many of the buildings in the downtown area have since been demolished. There was a long period after the quakes that the entire downtown was taped off and deemed unsafe for people to be walking in. There are very few tourists here these days, and even fewer locals walking around downtown. It's really sad to see the difference between current Christchurch and a place like Nelson, but yesterday I was just really happy to be in sunny, happy Nelson.

We didn't stay in Nelson too long though. After lunch and a bit of window shopping, we reserved our spots at a YHA hostel in Golden Bay and got on our way. We drove about 45 minutes to the Abel-Tasman National Park to do a day hike. The hike ended up to be a super simple 6k walk along the coast. The views were beautiful, but I'll let the photos speak for themselves. 

GRASSROOTS GEAR!



I really love that line of mountain in the distance. Makes the horizon so interesting



Appletree Bay - Destination of the hike

Low tide on our way back to the start

We went back to the nearest town for dinner, and before heading out to Golden Bay, stopped at the grocery store. Tina had an inkling that where we were going would be pretty remote and wouldn't have any place for us to get breakfast in the morning, so we stocked up on snacks for our morning hike. Feeling pretty prepared, we set off on our over-a-giant-mountain-in-the-pitch-darkness drive. About 45 minutes in, we're nearing the top of the mountain, and Tina goes, "You know else we should've gotten in town? Some gas." A minute later, the low fuel light turned on. Well shoot. It is nearly pitch black and we have no idea how far it is until we get to the hostel and also no idea if there will be a gas station where we're going. Towns and gas stations are few and far between when you start traveling through the mountains. The GPS arrival estimate was also suspiciously getting later and later. We made it to the top of the mountain, relieved to save a little bit of gas on the way down, and decide there's nothing we can do, except hopefully get to the hostel and get help. That's when we realized.. we told the hostel that would be there between 8 and 9 pm. They close at 7, so we needed to call and tell them if we will be later. We call repeatedly (once we finally get to an area with cell phone service) and get no answer. It's already 9:15, the fuel light it still on, and we have 15 minutes to go.

You could cut the tension in our car with a knife. We each admitted that we were all equally to blame for not checking the gas level ahead of time, but that didn't help the fact that no one thought we were going to make it. And worse than that, we really thought we were going to be shut out of the hostel and have to sleep in the car. Three of us in our Toyota Corolla did not see very comfortable. Thank God, I bought those Kit Kats at the grocery store ;)

Around 9:40 we got to the hostel, and shockingly someone was there to let us in. Exhausted, we got ready for bed, and I immediately fell asleep. The next morning, we found a gas station and were on our way for our next hike. Thank goodness.

We drove out to Cape Farewell, the northern-most point on the South Island and hiked out to Wharariki Beach. The beach had the smoothest, whitest sand I've ever seen. And it was deep. My shoes sunk nearly six inches in to the sand at some parts of the beach. Refreshed and restored, by making some of the first footprints on this powder-fresh sand, I felt so much better about our trek.

Finally we made it out to Cape Farewell, took in the views, and began our drive back south to Christchurch.

Northern-most point on the South Island

I liked this sign better than the one that said "Parents keep your small childen by your side at all times due to strong wind gusts along unfenced cliff faces"

Ah. So worth the hike.

So we almost ran out of gas, on a mountain, in the dark, without cell phone service, and we almost got locked out of the hostel. But we didn't. And once again I made it home safely and so ready for bed.

Other trip highlights:

- We had lots of car time, so we found some time to listen to Taylor Swift's new album all the way through, twice. Well done, Taylor.

- Great wildlife as always. We watched sheep being herded on the hilltop walk to the beach, and watched the dogs herd a runaway cow back in to his pasture after that. Reminded me of Lily-baby. I assumed this dog was her distant cousin, the New Zealand sheep dog.

After herding all those sheep up the hill

Runaway Cow! Go get 'em pup!