Home sweet home

28 hours and 5 different airports and we have arrived home safe and sound. I love to travel and we are extremely fortunate to be able to, still is sure is nice to come home.

We had great connections and although the flights were very full, we managed to sleep 6 or 7 hours on the flight from Auckland to San Francisco. Air Canada was super helpful and allowed Francois to change his flights so that we travelled the whole way to Regina together. He was supposed to over night in Vancouver and only arrive late in the day on Wednesday. Thank you Air Canada (too bad my new suitcase got busted).

Mao was extremely happy to see us and told me that Blair, Michelle, Ryan and Megan took great care of him, I am sure he will be sleeping in our bed tonight.

Thanks to all who read my blog, I enjoyed sharing our trip and may even keep posting new entries from time to time.

More pictures to follow once we have had a chance to sort them through.

Looking forward to see everyone!

Seatoun

It was just a perfect fall day on Sunday and we decided that we needed to burn off some calories so that we could eat like pigs at supper time. As the town is surrounded by the ocean, finding a place to go for a hike is never very hard.

Seatoun is situated on the east coast of the Miramar Peninsula, close to the entrance to Wellington Harbour. The suburb sits on an exposed promontory close to Barrett Reef, a dangerous area of rocky shallows upon which many ships have foundered, most notably the Inter-island ferry Wahine in 1968.

The beaches had tons of paua (see previous post). Great day.

Paua

The paua is iconic in New Zealand: its black muscular foot is considered a delicacy, and the shell is frequently used in jewelry.

To Māori, paua are recognised taonga, or treasure, esteemed both as kai moana (seafood) and as a valued resource for traditional and contemporary arts and crafts. Paua are frequently used to represent the eyes in Māori carvings and traditionally are associated with the stars, or whetu the eyes of ancestors that gaze down from the night sky.

You can find them all over the beaches in Wellington.

Sunday in Wellington

There is something about a city by the sea that is so relaxing, we got up later than normal and decided to go for an early morning walk. Lynne's place is only minutes walk from the harbour, and the downtown area. There was a lovely farmers market on and you could purchase fresh fish straight off the boat.

Sunday mornings are always interesting for people watching, you can always tell who has been up all night at the clubs, I was not one of them. We thought long and hard about going out and checking the night scene in Wellington, and sometimes its just better to sit at home and enjoy a glass of wine with friends.

Dolphin Swim

It is not easy to look your best in a wet suit, now I know what a sausage feels like.

Paying it forward

I told you about locking the keys in the car rental very early on in our trip. Two nice ladies helped us out and we were truly grateful for their assistance.

I was fortunate to be able to help an elderly couple today. They had a flat rear tire on their car and the older gentlemen (must have been 80) was struggling with the jack and bolts on the tire. So I had to stop and change the tire for him.

All is right with the universe now, he wanted to give me 10 bucks for helping him, he was so cute and the 3 birds he was travelling could have talked our ears off for sure!

Hanmer Springs

Hanmer Springs is a small town in the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand. It is located inland, 65 kilometres southwest from Kaikoura, it may only be 65km but on those roads it took almost two hours. I have to say that the spa is a little nicer than Moose Jaw. They have at least a dozen different pools at various temperatures, up to 41C.

One thing that is a little yucky is the smell of rotten eggs in the air and I swear it did not come from me this time. Even with the odors, it was so nice to relax for a few hours and soak up some much needed minerals and sun!

After we finished our soaking, we went for a nice tramp through a nature reserve, interesting trees, different from what we have at home.

Beer...

OK, I know that I should be drinking NZ beer, but like Blair would say..I have never met a beer I didnt like!

How does this sound, $8.99 for six beer (which is 20% cheaper Canadian) and you get 33% more beer in each can.

Does not get any better than that. A six pack does not last that long.

Fishing!!

Wow it sure was a wonderful day! Any day that I can spend 9 hours on the open ocean is better than anything I could dream about.

After we finished the dolphin tour (which was awesome), WOW so much fun. I went fishing with Kaikoura Fishing Adventures, I was on board with 4 other folks and off we went for a 5 hour fishing trip. I had an amazing time, fish were biting like crazy. Sea Perch, Blue Cod, Red Cod, small sharks and yummy Crayfish. We were surrounded by Albatross. Francois and Lynn did other stuff, not sure what...

I had fun.

This is the crayfish we had for supper, along with a huge feed of blue and red cod. Nothing better that fresh fish prepared by me and washed down with lots and lots of beer!!!

My Mom would be proud of Lynn, look at what was left of this Crayfish.

Swimming with the sharks

Hey, it's Francois here. I've been taking the back seat while on holidays. I was letting Ed expressing his inner-blogger. I have to admit I find him quite entertaining to read. Don't you agree? I should make him contribute to my blog when we get back to Canada.

As I'm writing this, I'm on a slight buzz from the Sauvignon Bland I've been trophing for the last two hours. I love it that you can buy a $10 bottle of wine that would cost $28 in Canada. Such good value for money. Let's just say that I'm glad I don't live in New Zealand otherwise I would be a total wino.

Ed, Lynne and I just had the most fantastic day today. We woke up early and made our way to Kaikoura for our "Swim With The Shark" encounter. I honestly thought it would suck. I figured that any dolphin related activity was about of tarty as a wolf to the moon blanket or velours framed art. Turned out that I was wrong.

Words fail me and I can't describe how magical the whole experience was. Imagine this: turquoise water, sunny cloudless day and 200-dolphin swimming right in front of you. On my first outing, a dolphin brushed against me and he looked at me and circled around me in a playful way for about 30 seconds. We were told to make dolphin-like noises through the scuba and "act" like a dolphin. So I did! I'm sure I looked like a right idiot but I didn't care. I honestly felt like I was connecting with the dolphins. I'm sure they were looking at me wondering what kind of strange creature I was. The husky dolphins were wild, in their natural habitat. The tour operator don't feed them and the animals are protected by the Department of Conservation.

I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit and engage in many activities. Nothing compares to what I did today. I felt like I was part of the ecosystem and I was making friends with very smart creatures.

I've heard of dolphin swimming in the Caribain sea but the New Zealand encounter was nothing like it because the animals are in their natural habitat. I felt I was entertaining them, not the other way around.

Sorry folks no pictures, we have some really cool ones, video and all!!! Stay tuned...

Come for the lake, stay for the adrenaline

Queenstown is a resort town in Otago in the south-west of New Zealand's South Island. It is built around an inlet on Lake Wakatipu, a long thin lake shaped like a staggered lightning bolt, and has spectactular views of nearby mountains.

A resort town, Queenstown is a centre for adventure tourism. Skiing, jet boating, bungy jumping, mountain biking, tramping and fly fishing are all strong promotional themes.

It reminded me of Banff, lots of posh shops and tons of tourists everywhere. If you are looking for some heart stopping activities, this is the place to be.

Scarry.

Sunglasses

So I brought two pair of sunglasses on holidays, they sure come in handy when it is sunny and you have a lot of driving to do.

As some of you may know, I no longer purchase expensive sunglasses, these two pairs cost me 3 pair for 5 bucks, not bad for Foster Grants, and I look so cool.

Francois broke one pair and I broke the other running from a giant wave. So when in NZ find a 2 dollar store and purchase new glasses, check out Francois' pair!

Cool.

Ohau Creek Walk

5 minutes drive from our bach is the Ohau Creek Walk, recommended by Lynn the owner of our place. We decided that a nice walk before supper would be just the thing to give us an energy boost. 10 minute trek to a beautiful waterfall. Nice.

The surprise for us was that baby seals use this river to play and wash off the salt water from their fur, who knew. It was a very special experience for the three of us. The are so cute you just want to take them home with you (not club them to death!!!!) The fur seals

Cute.

Kaikoura

We arrived in Picton after a three hour ferry from Wellington. The trip brought back memories of a trip Lynn, Francois and I took to Vancouver Island 2 years ago, breath taking. Picked up the rental car and drove the two hours to Kaikoura.

We are staying at a lovely beach house two minutes from the beach, the fire is roaring and we are enjoying a lovely glass of wine (me beer). We are going to cook our own supper and get up early to go swimming with DOLPHINS!!!! I can't wait.

We had lunch at Kaikoura Seafood BBQ - just a few tables by the side of the road, a covered space for the coolers of seafood, the grill, and the barbecue, and two ladies cooking and serving. We had scallops, mussels, crayfish, fish and chowder. WOW it was so yummy and cheap. DELISH!

Tunnel beach

Tunnel Beach is along the Dunedin to Brighton coastal road. About 2km after leaving the Dunedin area.

Of all the walkways to Tunnel Beach, are spectacular and strikingly different. Here you will find sea-carved sandstone cliffs, rock arches and caves just 15 minutes walk from the road.

The one hour return walk takes you through a tunnel carved through the rock then down to the beach - it's best to do this expedition at low tide.

The tunnel was built by John Cargill to allow him private access to the beach, making it a great place for a family picnic in a secluded area. Look out for the small fossils in the spectacular sandstone cliffs.

Nice one.

Back to Wellington

Hey, we picked up the computer at the shop and it is all repaired. Francois' camera as well is now dust free, somehow some dust got on the sensor and many of the pictures had spots on them, nothing that cant be touched up in photoshop.

We are now back in Wellington visiting with our Rose, tonight we plan on a nice salmon supper at home as we are leaving tomorrow morning to travel to Kaikoura. We board the ferry at 8:30am for a 3 hour tour to Picton.

Kaikoura is situated midway between Christchurch and Picton on the rugged east coast of New Zealand's South Island, and is overlooked by majestic mountains, which are snow-capped for many months of the year.

This unique combination of ocean and mountains offers stunning coastal alpine scenery and a host of eco-tourism oriented activities, including Whale watching, Dolphin swimming, walks, and hopefully lots of wine drinking....

The beach house we are renting has wireless internet so stay tuned for further updates.

Thanks Megan and Ryan for checking in on Mao so often, I so appreciate it. I miss my kitty.

Internet Cafe

That will be all for the posting of today. We are currently in an internet cafe surrounded by geeks playing World of War. I am sure they all live in the mother's basement and have secret handshakes. UGH. I gotta get out of here!

We are taking the computer into a shop in Wellington on Tuesday morning, they have to replace the complete hard drive.

The unfortunate this is we have lost a lot of our pictures from our trip!

More bad luck...but we still have some great shots and are very fortunate to be on holidays together. Francois has managed to catch a pretty bad cold, but is starting to feel better!

Dunedin Day 1

Had a great flight to Dunedin from Wellington, took about 1 hour and we arrived to beautiful weather. Picked up the rental car and we are off to discover the sights and sounds of this city. Dunedin is the fifth largest city in New Zealand and its Scottish beginning makes it quite different from anywhere else in New Zealand. Dunedin is the old Gaelic name for Edinburgh but Dunedin is hillier, smaller, closer to the sea and has better climate (so they say??). Dunedin has many Scottish traits including the haggis ceremony - fine golf courses and pipe band.

We visited an awesome beach and then drove to do a short hike, the wind picked up and the temperatures began to drop, not a good sign. Francois decided to take one last picture of me before we set off on the trail, I promptly closed the door and just as it clicked shut, I remembered that the keys to the car were still inside!!!!!

So there we are in the middle of nowhere locked out of the car!! Not a great situation to be in.

So after taking several deeeeeeepppp breaths, I can down the road and pull some wire off of a padock fence to try and jimmy the door open. No such luck.

Fortunately 20 minutes later a lovely couple of women arrived from their hike and the had a membership for the Automobile Association and they managed to get a signal on their cellphone! PHIEW. 40 minutes later a tow truck showed up and we got back into the car. We owe these ladies a great debt and thanks to them we salvaged our day. It was sooooo cold and they let us sit in their car and keep warm.

We returned today to finish the hike, it was well worth it.

We sure have had some bad luck on this trip...at times....

Dunedin, New Zealand

2000kms later and we are on our last day of our 8 day trip touring the South Island, we leave in the morning for Wellington and the next leg.

Our scuba diving trip in Milford Sounds was an absolute blast, Milford Sound is simply stunning. In Maori legend, the fiords were created not by rivers of ice, but by Tu Te Raki Whanoa, a godly figure who came wielding a magical adze and uttering incantations. Milford Sound (Piopiotahi) is without doubt his finest sculpture.

Whatever the fiord’s mood, teeming with rain (which is how we experienced it) or with sun glistening on deep water (not so much), it was inspiring. Nowhere in Fiordland do the mountains stand as tall, straight out of the sea. In the foreground of the fiord, stands Mitre Peak, a remarkable presence dominating the skyline.

The small boat we were on was rocked back and forth by the wind gust of up to 90 km/hr, and the rain just kept coming down. The waterfalls actually blew up into the air and came down as even more rain.

We dove twice, well dress with thick wetsuits the experience was extraordinary. The top layer of water is rather cold because it is fresh, as you dive deeper the fresh water and salt water mix creating an eerie view of your co-divers.

We saw sea horses, dog sharks, blue cod and most special to me was a carpet shark that I spotted and our dive master had never seen one!

Anywhoo, it was awesome and Francois really enjoyed the experience as well.

Computer busted

We are in Milford sounds getting ready to go scuba diving. By the way, we have had some bad luck and our laptop is fried. Wil try and post more soon.