City of Crayfish

Where to begin? After leaving Picton and our failed attempt at the Queen Charlotte behind, we traveled to Kaikoura (Maori for “food of crayfish”), a beach town, for a couple of nights. The town itself is gorgeous – the snow-capped Kaikoura mountain range runs right up to the ocean, so it’s a great juxtaposition for beach and mountain lovers! However, we chose the worst two days of our entire trip to stay there.

Originally we had planned to go whale watching, but of course the largest storm of the season struck both islands (even shutting down the ferries running between them) and we were dry-docked for a full day. The redeeming part of that stay? Meeting a Brit who has his own car (we’ll catch up with him later) and another American girl named Molly who had just arrived from a long while in China. What a firecracker! Of course we hit the local pub/hotspot dubbed the Strawberry Tree for a pint of cider and a “snakebite”, a drink concocted of beer, cider and a pinch of raspberry syrup. Delicious!

On Kaikoura Beach - that was the most sky we saw our entire time there! Arghhhh.

The next day, our Italian friend Milo picked us up in a rental (VERY small but quite functional) and we traveled up through the hills in the opposite direction, ending up in Nelson on the top of the South Island. We stayed at a great hostel, the Green Monkey, and then did a day walk in the Abel Tasman National Park after taking a water taxi to the trailhead. It was so lovely! Luckily there was plenty of sunshine.

Left: Milo and Carly in the Lewis Pass!

Right: The beautiful Abel Tasman National Park.

We traveled back to Picton (that place has some sort of hold on us) and spent one more night there to drop off the car, then jumped on a bus the next day for Christchurch. That is another post, but we had a great last evening with Milo as he was set to return to Cairns, Australia where he lives now. Hopefully that’s not the last we’ll see of him!

On the water taxi...

Milo, balancing the boat by his lonesome.

The three of us in Abel Tasman.

We have to say – while hostel life gets a bit tiring after a while – sharing a room with 4 other people and bathroom facilities with 10 – we have definitely met some great people along the way. Even ones we can travel with! Also, we swear that New Zealand is populated mostly by German backpackers as they consist of at least 75% of the people we meet in hostels. Half the time we have no idea what people are saying!