Travels

After our canyoning adventure and cruise of Milford Sound we headed north to Mount Cook. We were a little disappointed when we got there because it was very cloudy so we couldn't see any of the peaks and didn't even know which one was Mount Cook. We did a short walking trail just before it got dark, and although the views were still neat they would've been even more beautiful had the clouds been gone. The next morning we decided to do one of the longer tracks to see more of the area. The clouds were still around but they moved enough for us to get some views of the amazing peaks. I'm very glad we stuck around that morning to get to see these because the night before we weren't even sure where Mount Cook was and we were pretty unimpressed with the size of the mountains until the clouds cleared and we could actually see them.

After this we went to Christchurch for the afternoon and spent the night there. We just walked the town a little and got to see most of the Town Centre. It is a much larger town, but the town centre still felt small townish. We left the next morning to head to Hamner Springs to check out the sulful spa. It was very relaxing to spend some time here, but there were a lot of families and couples in the pools so Tonya and I felt a little awkward. We found some chairs to sit in the sun for a little while, but I soon found out why they have "beware of honeybee" signs around the pools because I got stung by one of them..

We've been trying to keep our costs on food and housing pretty cheap, so we have been staying mainly in hostels and backpackers. Some of these have been nicer than others and it just depends on the place. Some of the rooms are coed, but when we checked into our room in Christchurch, the man looked at the room info and then looked at us and said, "Oh no there boys in that room, we can't have you staying there." He then gave us a two-person room for the same price as the cheaper rooms. We both thought that was really nice of him and decided that he must have daughters of his own.

In Kaikoura we did a whale watching tour and got to see Tiaka, a large sperm whale that dives down into the water for about 45 minutes and then surfaces for 5-10 minutes. I took many pictures while he was on the surface and then they let you know when he goes to dive again because that is when you can get a good picture of the tail. My pictures were both terrible and blurry though. We also got to see several dolphins (100-200) and many of them were very playful and would jump in the air and do flips and somersalts. They were a lot of fun to watch.

We decided to drive straight back to Alex that afternoon, which was an 8 hour drive. Each day we had to drive for around 4 or 5 hours also, so we have had lots of time in our van. We rarely get a good radio station in and we had some interesting ones on this trip. Our favorite had the line "Your fishnets and nose ring are making my heart sing." Pretty sure it's going to be a hit.