In and around Christchurch with Karen!

When Karen wasn't off sightseeing by herself, and when I wasn't working, we found time to have a little fun around Christchurch.

 

A trip to Christchurch wouldn't be complete without a stop at Coffee Culture, a Christchurc cafe chain. To be quite honest I've had better coffee in the city, but this place is open late, unlike a lot of the other places.. and it does have a good atmopsphere so we find ourselves going there!

 

Spot Karen on the Gondola! Through the botanical gardens, up the avon river she went! We watched from the river banks :)

 

Luckily Karen was around to help me celebrate my birthday! In the evening we went to Candice's and had a BBQ. She even made me ice cream cake (a DQ tradition amongst us... it was better than DQ!)

 

Even though it was cloudy we went and hung out at sumner beach one day!

More of Kaikoura

Just a few more pics of Kaikoura because I just can't narrow down all the pics that well... I love this place!

 

Candice, me, Karen at the top of the lookout

 

 

Karen and the seal - dont worry, we didn't let her get that close! Although it was pretty hot out so I dont think the seal would have moved that fast anyways!

 

Basking in the sun.

Kaikoura

On the way back to Christchurch we stopped in Kaikoura, one of my favorite places (so far) in the south island. It's a ocean-side town with the Kaikoura Mountain Ranges in the backdrop. As soon as we drove up to the beach we saw a couple of whales fairly close to the shore swimming around. Pretty amazing, seeing as they don't usually come in that close. We watched them in the water for a while. They weren't super close to the shore but you could definitely tell what it was!

 

There are a lot of places along the beach near Kaikoura selling Crayfish, but this one is my favorite! Haven't tried it yet though (it's pretty expensive!)

 

 

There's also a seal colony there, so we stopped to take a few pictures.

 

More of Picton and then heading home...

Of course, it's not a true NZ experience if you don't have fish and chips on the beach... which is exactly what we did our last night in Picton. The next day we headed back to Christchurch, making a few stops along the way. First stop - Winery! Marlborough is wine country so we stopped at NZ's largest winery - Montana (I think they have a different label for exporting to North America so the Americans don't get it confused with the State. haha).

 

Yummy Fish and Chips

 

Outside at the Montana Winery

 

Montana! (the winery, not the state)

 

Driving!

Queen Charlotte Sounds

We decided to be a little more active than just lying in the sun so we found a day walk, called the Snout, that we could do in the area, packed a bit of a lunch and headed out. The walk took about an hour and a half each way but it was beautiful and at the end of the land (at the "snout") there was a picnic table that we sat and had lunch at! Again we got a little burnt :) The sun is HOT!

 

Along the trail

 

Candice and I

 

At the end

 

Karen and Candice

Karen's Visit!!!

In November Karen came to visit for a couple of weeks. Candice and I drove up to Picton to pick Karen up from the ferry from Wellington and we ended up renting a bach for the weekend and staying up there. The place we stayed was advertised as an self contained apartment with a pool and spa (hot tub). When Candice and I got there we saw that it wasn't exactly an apartment but rather a basement suite of a house. but it did have a pool and a hot tub and of course we still had a great time! The first day we were there we picked karen up from the ferry and then went back to the house and lay out in the sun (burning), catching up. We treated ourselves to a nice dinner out to celebrate Karen's arrival!

 

Karen brought us treats! Candice loves vanilla rolaids - eats them like candy!

 

Champagne to celebrate!

 

Us and our slightly burnt faces...

 

The pool and the view of Queen Charlotte Sound

Lake Tekapo

In the last couple of days that Karen was in New Zealand we rented a car and went on a little adventure. We first drove to Lake Tekapo and spent the night there, camping on the side of an incredibly beautiful lake. We explored a little in the car and went to some mineral springs to relax. The next day we went out to Mt Cook.

 

Church of the Good Sheperd

 

Karen from the observatory. It had a great view of Lake Tekapo and the surrounding mountains. Unfortunatly it wasn't open for the sunset or at night for us to stargaze. Even so, we did some star gazing and I don't think I've ever seen stars as bright as I did there.

 

Karen and I

 

Lake Tekapo

Mt. Cook

The highest mountain in New Zealand, and boy is it beautiful! This is (again) one of my favorite places in New Zealand. Karen and I hiked along Hooker Valley to the hooker glacier. It was an amazing hike! I just kept on saying over and over again, I love this place!

 

 

 

 

Who is this Guy Fawkes?

Kiwis (amongst others I think) celebrate a day called Guy Fawkes Day. It's not a national holiday, but it is one of the few days where it's legal to light of fireworks. No one I asked knew for sure what they were celebrating, but from what I gather is Guy Fawkes was a man who, a few centuries ago, tried to blow up the House of Parliament in England. Yeah, so let's recap - we are celebrating a guy, who is not from here, who tried to blow up the parliament. Good reason to light off fireworks? haha. I heard something about how they're celebrating the fact that the King survived it. Who knows. Anyways, that day was a bit of a weird weather day (more so than usual). We were going to have a picnic on the beach and wait for the sun to go down. When we left the grocery store it was POURING. We got to the beach - still pouring, but SNOWING in the hills. I think there may have been hail as well. But the sun came out, it cleared up and we had our picnic on the beach. We went over to New Brighton (beach suburb of Christchurch), where they lit fireworks off the pier. I have to say, after being spoiled by the Symphony of Fire year after year in Vancouver other fireworks don't usually impress me. But these were really good. And set to music.
So whether it's a holiday celebrating a terrorist or not, it was a grand evening :) Plus a good way to test out the fireworks setting on my new camera :)

 

 

 

 

More of Akaroa

Candice showing her French side

 

 

 

Diana