New Zealand - Week 3

Week 3 Nov 20 - 26th = Christchurch/Kaikoura (South Island) to Napier (North Island)

Another week of early mornings and a fair amount of driving took us from Kaikoura on a beautiful coastal drive then inland through winding roads round the mountains to the North of NZ's South Island. Our next 3 days were spent in Nelson, where they get sunshine and much-appreciated heat/blue skies most of the year! Staying at a nice friendly backpackers called 'The Bug' was great, the owners (from Leicester & Canada) love VW Beatles (Pic 1) and cleanliness, plus my personal highlight of FREE INTERNET ACCESS!!!

Aside from a half-day trip to the Abel Tasman National Park, where 4 hours were spent basking in the sun on Coquelle Beach (see Pic 2 & 3), we didnt do an awful lot in Nelson except rest and prepare for our journey from South to North Island. On a side note here, I was rather amused to drive through STOKE, rather greener & quieter than its Midlands namesake (pic 4 above)!

And so we took the InterIslander Ferry from Picton, South Island, to Wellington on the North Island....twas rather exciting driving onto a huge ferry (something I haven't done for 15 years since a family holiday to France!) and to up the excitement level somewhat further I paid $10 to watch The Bourne Ultimatum (3rd time....love that MATT DAMON!) & thus missed out on the views of the Queen Charlotte Sound & other landscape the Ferry travels through! On arrival in Wellington we were given a rather unwelcome "Welcome to the North Island" when the car behind us decided not to stop at the exit from ferry terminal to main road...... giving the rear-end of our Mitsubishi Lancer hire-car a good bump!!! This accident cut into our scheduled time in the Wellington area but we did manage a visit to the wonderful Te Papa museum, cable car ride, ice cream, train ride up the coast to Paikakariki (pic 5) and also I got to see the extent of 'DAVID-BECKHAM FEVER' (the LA Galaxy were playing an 'exhibition' match in Wellington...basically ppl pay extortionate amounts of money to watch Beckham and some average American soccer players in a meaningless game, 24 hours after Wellington played in an important A-League match!). On the Sunday we went along to the Wellington New Frontiers' Kings Church in morning and evening, had a great time & I loved the youth service, especially seeing a group of Maori guys praying together afterwards.

Leaving Wellington was nice, our replacement hire car was a Nissan Pulsar which had slightly more power uphill so the journey north-east to Napier was quite nice. Napier was devastated by a HUGE earthquake in 1930 so it was rebuilt in an Art-Deco style (see pic's 6 & 7), I had no idea what Art-Deco meant but have to say I fell in love with it, and Napier.... probably the ONLY place in NZ that I could picture myself living in, it even has an art-deco amphitheatre on the promenade (pic 8)!

This 3rd week was nowhere near the action-packed 1st 2 weeks, and from here on the pace of travel was much slower..... my bank balance certainly appreciated this!