New Zealand

I feel like killing time has become one of my stronger talents since arriving in New Zealand. To some, it might appear to be relaxing, but to us, its killing time. And it’s dreadfully boring. We lay around in parks waiting to check into hostels. We hide in movie theaters waiting for the rain to stop. We sprawl out in cafes waiting for buses. We wander the streets, waiting, waiting, and waiting. We are currently twiddling our thumbs in Christchurch, waiting for our flight to Bangkok, which doesn’t leave for 6 more days. We wish we would have thought ahead enough to check into moving up our departure. Ah, c'est la vie. There are worse places to be stuck!

Our travels have been beer filled since we left Wanaka for the second time (we had to make a quick stop to pick up final paychecks). We drove up the west coast past the previously visited Fox/Franz Joseph glaciers and Hokitika. We continued on to Greymouth - the largest settlement on the west coast. We stayed in a funky little hostel (yay for a night in a bed!) and took a tour around the Montieth's brewery. It’s a tiny little business that produces an impressive amount of beer for having only 9 full-time employees. The tour guide informed us that they hired temporary help to pack crates for $17. The boys were a little sad about missing out on that opportunity, but they felt better once we got to the hour-long open bar/tasting session. The next day, we continued on to Westport, where we stopped by another brewery. No tour this time. But we did get to fill up a couple of our 2-liter water bottles (who needs water?) with beer. For $7. Total. We thought this was a fantastic stroke of good luck.

Before stopping in Westport, we hit up the Pancake Rocks and blowholes in Punakaiki. The Pancake Rocks started forming about 30 million years ago. The layers in the rocks (that give them their characteristic stacks-of-pancakes shape) are dead marine creatures layered with mud and clay. Some time ago, an earthquake pushed the seabed up above the surface of the water and voila! Pancake Rocks! When the conditions are right, water rushes into caverns under the rocks and water squirts out through the blowholes (in a whale-like manner). We tried to time our arrival with high tide - when the show is rumored to be at its best - but the ocean wasn't working with us that day. The sight was still pretty amazing. The rocks, themselves, are interesting creations. But we saw no blowing water.

We then headed back up to Nelson for the beer fest we had been looking forward to for months. We were excited until we found out that tickets were expensive and didn’t include the price of beer. So, we ended up staying put at the bar we went to buy tickets from. I'm sure we spent just as much as we would have at the festival, but at least we didn’t have to stand around in the rain all day. Another bonus was that this was a fantastic little pub with the most taps we've seen at one bar in New Zealand.

The next day we headed up to beautiful Abel Tasman Park (where Brody and I had our kayaking adventure) to start the Abel Tasman Track - one of the "great walks" in New Zealand. The entire hike follows the coastline through the park, crossing low-tide estuaries and beaches, then winding up into the rain forest. It can take between 3-5 days to complete the entire track, but we chose a shorter, 2-day portion. The weather wasn’t agreeing with our plans, and it rained. The beaches aren’t nearly as picture-perfect when it rains. However, the weather did clear up for us the next day and we had wonderful views.

The next few days were spent hanging out in Golden Bay, which is full of artsy little shops and quirky microbreweries. We drove up to Farewell Spit - the northernmost point on the south island - and took a walk to the beach where we were presently surprised by some sand dunes.

Since then, we've tried to slow up our arrival in Christchurch with a few mini-adventures (more on this next time), but we still got here with 7 days to spare. Today, the boys are on a side trip up Aurthur's Pass. I chose to stay behind to get a little break from the testosterone I've been surrounded by lately. I'll check back in with photos from their trip soon!