Day 7: Kaikoura to Christchurch
A Day at the Beach (Sheep Included!)
Kaikoura. If you have the money (145 NZD to be exact), this is the place where you can get on a boat and see whales. If you don’t see any, they pay you back 80%. Not a bad deal, but we thought that there’d be more opportunities to see whales in Australia and we weren’t itching to see them just now.
So, we did all we could for free/cheap in the area. We walked along the coast line and came up close to some seals sleeping on the rocks. They smelled like wet dogs. Seriously. Also, they make real cool grunt sounds. Watching them nap, I really marveled at how relaxed they looked, they’re bodies seem to mold completely to the contour of the rock they were sleeping on. For me, I usually wake up finding myself in plank position and my abs feeling sore.
We had some seafood at a BBQ stall next to the beach. Review: The crayfish fritter (lobster omelet) tasted like an omelet with a little bit of lobster instead of tasting like lobster with some egg in it. Also, it was like kids meal in terms of size (cost: 9 NZD, thumbs down). The seafood chowder was much better, with all kinds of good seafood bits in it (scallops, mussels, shrimp…) and more cost effective (5 NZD, thumbs up).
After that small meal, we went to a sheep shearing show, where you pay 10 NZD to give milk to a baby black sheep, feed a ram, listen to some sheep industry history and facts, and of course see a farmer shear a sheep. It was quite interesting. I found the sheep dog hilarious. When the farmer was shearing the sheep, the dog (Frank I believe his name was) would lie on his back and swerve back in forth in delight. I thought that was a really funny conditioned response.
So after our little stay, we started our drive to Christchurch, stopping on the way for some beautiful ocean and seal photo ops.
In Christchurch, guess what was the first thing that caught our eye? The church! Pictures.
We stayed at a holiday park near the airport (15/night). The airport is way out of the city, so the gas we spent driving to the park, nearly off-set the savings we were getting for sleeping in the car. TIP: Try to get a holiday park near the city unless you’re returning the rental car to the airport the next day, which we weren’t (would totally recommend the holiday park that we stayed at if you is).
Spent the evening at the internet room they had at the holiday park. Apo watched TV, while I finished watching the Gunbuster series. Freaking great. I was actually getting really into science fiction prior to coming to NZ after watching the Cosmos series hosted by Carl Sagan and I felt that Gunbuster helped satisfy that Sci-Fi craving, if just for a little bit.
I’ll have to start another blog series about Films/TV Shows/Anime that have really influenced me.
Look forward to that! Ok, Apo is getting angry at me for making her stay up late again. Early to bed and early to rise is a good motto especially in NZ, since everything closes hella early here. Night!
DT*: 100.9
RDA**: 110.4
RT***: 773.05
*Some costs (not all) will be mentioned in the blog. Note, for this day 50 NZD was spent on gas! = O
** Will rename Daily Average to the more accurate Running Daily Average (RDA)
***Will rename Total Spent to Running Total (RT)
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