The next day we woke up bright and early. Well, early for us, about 7am because we had a long drive ahead of us, with plenty of sights on the way. Much to our chagrin, it was raining. And not just raining, it was a serious downpour. We hopped in the car and started the drive, and worked to imagine the beautiful scenery passing us by, completely obscured by the clouds and fog. We stopped in Nelson for lunch, and since it was still raining, Noah got to do a beer tasting at Founders Brewery. Judging from the fact that he finished three glasses before I got the camera out, it was a success.
But, our luck was turning around, and as we walked out of the brewery the sun came out. Maybe Nelson does have sun for 200+ days a year after all. We quickly jumped in the car and continued the drive to Golden Bay stopping at some scenic lookouts on the way and scaring a few sheep too.
Our plans for the next day were to explore Abel Tasman National Park by kayak. When we got to the beach, they were only lending out sit-on-tops for 2 hours due to the wind expected later in the day. As this was supposed to be one of the best places to kayak, it didn't seem like enough, so we went tramping instead, hoping for better weather the next day. As you can see from the pictures below, the Abel Tasman Coast Track was stunning (too bad we only had time to do 1 day of the 4-day track)
The view of Golden Bay going up Gibb's Hill
Still going up
Spotting the first beach, two hours into the hike
Okay, I guess they were right about the wind.
Walking through the canopy, a light at the end of the tunnel
Beach number 3, so perfect!
Using our three-sticks skills to get back to the car byjumping across the creeks in the trail.
And the next day, we finally got to sea-kayak! The weather was perfect and the water was calm. Couldn't be better.
These two pups really wanted to climb aboard our kayak. I wasn't too sure about this, but they seemed to be. But just as they got their courage, another kayak came by, and a few big waves scared them away.
We left Christchurch the next morning and headed north to Kaikoura. The first day there we did the peninsula walk, which we loved. It was really amazing to see all the different landscapes, and we even spotted some seals on the beach.
And we had an intense sunset that night.
The next day we were supposed to go whale watching but there had been no whales spotted for a few days, so all the tours were cancelled. We figured it was better than paying and not seeing whales and wasting the day. So, instead we headed to the local winery. As you can tell, we were not very experienced, but we had a lot of fun.
The next day's drive took us through Marlborough, NZ's most famous wine region. Of course now that we were experienced wine tasters we had to give it a try. The first winery we went to had rows of grapes for each of the wines that you could try. Most importantly, I finally found a wine I like. Its called Gewurztraminer and is really sweet. Noah bought me a bottle.
We then went to another winery which had a french bistro where we had a gourmet lunch and a flight of wine. The cheese and seafood plates were so good, and along with the perfect location and weather, we were on cloud nine.
So much more to catch up, but it'll have to wait for another day.
We finished up the Great Ocean Road that day and slept in the quiet town of Port Fairy. We then headed inland to Tower Hill Reserve, where we heard was a good place to spot kangaroos. The park seemed to be pretty full of emus, but no kangaroos were found on either of the two hikes we did, although we did spot a koala in the parking lot. As we drove out of the park we joked that we would probably be more likely to hit a kangaroo with our car than spot one in the open. JUST then a kangaroo came leaping down the slope and jumped right in front of our car! Unfortunately my reflexes were slow so no picture, but luckily Noah's reflexes were not, so the kangaroo was unharmed.
Here is a picture of the second (and third) kangaroos we spotted inland at the Grampians National Park the next day. Of course they were spotted chilling out at the visitor center :)
At the Grampians we did a 10k hike to get to the top of one of the mountains. It did not disappoint, both on the way up, and the great views from the top. Although I did worry about Noah's proximity to the cliff edge...
After all that hiking, we were a bit tired the rest of the day, so we drove around checking out the look-outs and doing another short hike to McKenzie Waterfalls. We were concerned that there would be barely a trickle since all the streams we had passed were dry, but as we drove up, we could hear the water flow from the nearby Broken Falls. A good sign.
After a yummy breakfast the next morning, we were on our way back to Melbourne to catch our flight to Chrsitchurch. We were a little sad to part with our campervan, mostly because it meant back to 8-bed dorms for a few more nights.