The Term Break Adventures, continued...

If you thought that last post was long, I can assure you that this one will be longer. It has pretty pictures though! This part of the break starts on Saturday, April 14.

So after a long night of unpacking, essay writing, washing clothes, wine drinking, repacking, and little sleep, I met up with my parents!!!!!!!! They drove down to Christchurch from Kaikoura and picked me up. We drove part of the way to Kaikoura and stopped a winery for lunch. It was beautiful and the food was great. We caught up a bit (because unfortunately I don't talk to my parents as often as usual while I'm on the other side of the world), and then drove to Kaikoura. We went and saw some seals that night, which was pretty neat.

Seal colony

The next day, we had a tasty breakfast and did a wonderful 4 hour hike/walk around the Kaikoura Peninsula. We saw more seals and vistas with the most beautifully blue waters I've ever seen (although I've seen a lot of really blue water here... I don't understand how the water here is so blue everywhere. NZ is gorgeous) and had a fun picnic of sausage, cheese, bread, apples, and wine before driving to Blenheim for the night. 

Kaikoura

View from the top of the peninsula walk

More seals!

In Blenheim, we stayed at a B&B on a vineyard. We were greeted with the tastiest tea cookies and had dinner at an incredibly tasty restaurant in town. I had salmon risotto that was so good. Blenheim and Nelson are part of the Marlborough region which is famous for its Sauvignon Blanc (which you may know is my favorite type of wine). We stopped at a winery on our way out of town the next day after a wonderful breakfast fixed for us by Evelyn, our wonderful host. If/when my dear friends and I own a winery/vineyard/B&B/restaurant, that was pretty close to how I imagine it to be. Might not ever happen, but we can dream, right?

Parents and Evelyn

Korohi Vineyard

Mmmm... breakfast

We drove to Nelson on 16 April and drove into Nelson just in time to see a wonderful sunset. We stayed at the most adorable hotel that had rooms in English cottage buildings. It was so cozy and unique. We had dinner that night at a wonderful Indian restaurant (another thing I LOVE about NZ... the Indian food here is amazing; even the mediocre stuff is delicious). Nelson is such a fun town, I would love to go back while I'm here but I don't know if I will get the chance. The next day we were still in Nelson so we did a short little hike up to the geographic center of New Zealand, had a picnic in the botanic gardens, and walked around town a little. We had dinner at an amazing restaurant with outstanding food that overlooked the ocean. Our stay in Nelson was lots of fun, and we came back a few days later (Friday night) after our trip to Abel Tasman. Because it was Friday, we had pasta (family tradition) that was also so good. Moral of the story: Nelson has really good food.

My wonderful parents :)

Geographic Centre of NZ

One of the coolest things we did on our trip was our 3 day sea kayaking and hiking trip in Abel Tasman National Park. On Wednesday we began our journey in sea kayaks (did about 20 km on day one) and we stayed the night at Torrent Bay in an incredibly classy lodge. It was fun to meet other people who were doing the same trip we were but instead of kayaking, they were walking the whole thing. Day two, we kayaked 10 km, and walked 10 km to another lodge. It was really neat, we only carried what we needed for that day and all our overnight stuff was transported by boat and was waiting for us at the lodge. Friday was a shorter day of walking and then a boat ride back to the start. It was really cool to take the boat ride and see how far we had walked and kayaked; it really was quite a long way. We also saw jelly fish, seals, and blue penguins!! Abel Tasman is gorgeous and it was such a fun adventure.

Our kayaking group

As previously stated, we returned to Nelson on Friday night for pasta and had a wonderful dinner. Stay tuned for part three... it will resume in Nelson on Saturday, April 21. Get excited!