South Island- Round One

We knew we wouldn’t be able to see all we wanted to on the South Island in ten days, so we planned another one week trip to see the north of the south island. We took the Interislander Ferry across the Cook Strait and through the Marlborough Sounds to Picton last Tuesday. We rented a car and decided to take the secondary route to see the beautiful scenery, but because these damn NZ roads are SO windy, I got a little car sick and wasn’t able to enjoy too much of the scenery. We still haven’t been able to achieve the 100km/hr speed limit here and can’t understand how anyone could even come close to it!



We drove to Nelson for our first night of camping. Nelson is a beautiful little city and is the sunniest place in NZ. We were really looking forward to the sunny weather because we haven’t been as lucky on the North Island. So after fighting with the tent for 45 minutes and almost filing for divorce, we realized we needed to go by some tent pegs. Not sure how it is supposed to be put up without pegs, but apparently is has been done. After this minor hiccup, we went in town to meet up with some Albertan friends! We had drinks on an outdoor patio and caught up on life in NZ. We knew Ryan from Ontario and Edmonton and met his fiancée, Ashley who is also now living in Sherwood Park. It’s always so nice to see a familiar face!

The next day we drove to Motueka which is close to the entrance of the Abel Tasman National Park. We stayed at the Top 10 Holiday Park (a really clean and nice chain of campgrounds all over NZ) for two nights and booked our next two days in the park. The Abel Tasman is a National Park filled with beautiful golden sand beaches, clear aqua green water and really dense rainforest. It is 52km long and usually takes 3-5 days to complete by hiking and/or kayaking. We chose to take an Aqua Taxi to our drop off point and to hike back to the entrance. It was about an hour’s boat ride to get to our starting point which took us by various beaches and around some small islands. We hiked 24km through native NZ rainforest and tons of beautiful beaches. Unfortunately it was raining on and off so we didn’t get to fully enjoy the beaches and the clear aqua green water. The water is perfectly clear when the sun is shining, but I was a little bit scared to take the plunge in the dark water…especially because there are seals, penguins, dolphins and a local shark spotted there last week. The hike wasn’t as difficult as the Tongariro which we did last week, but was definitely getting tougher coming on the end when all we wanted to do was sit down! We hit up the hot tub at the campground that night to relax!

The next day, we had rented kayaks for the day to do part of it by water. We got all the gear and suited up to head out to one of the small islands to see the fur seals and penguins. It was once again, cloudy and rainy so it was pretty scary out in the open water with Aqua Taxis flying by us, but we did make it to the island and stopped to pee. Ha. We unfortunately, didn’t see any seals but we did catch a couple of penguins which are really cute. We stopped on a small secluded beach for lunch before hopping back in the kayak and making our way back before low tide hit. We did beach it at one point, but it was a great day on the water. The Abel Tasman National Park is definitely a beautiful spot to spend a couple of days and we are very glad that we made the extra trip over to the South Island to see it! That night, Ashley and Ryan joined us at the campground for some drinks and fun. Of course, we are now planning on hopefully meeting up with them in Asia at some point too!



We left the National Park and headed back to Picton (where the ferry comes in) to meet some of our Wellington friends to head to Blenheim for the Marlborough Wine and Food Fest. We took a bus to Blenheim (29km away) and joined in on the fun with 8000 other wine drinkers. It was a great day with lots of great wine and food and of course, amazing entertainment. Liam Finn, who reminded us a lot of Sam Roberts performed for an hour and a half. We both loved him! After he finished, Gin Wigmore who is a young Kiwi girl performed. She is becoming really big in NZ and has just signed a record deal in the US so hopefully she’ll break into the North American market soon and you’ll all know what I’m talking about when I say that she sounds so much like Janis Joplin! She has been one of my favorites since arriving in NZ so I was pretty stoked when we got to see her live! We are going to buy both of their albums and send them home with Clement’s parents. I would advise you all to check them both out!



Clement’s parents are travelling on their own for a couple of weeks as well, and arrive back in Wellington on Thursday for a few days before leaving on the 23rd. We also leave on the 23rd to head back to the South Island and finish up our NZ travels, before leaving for Melbourne, Australia on March 5th! In the meantime, we are going to soak up our last 6 days in Wellington and say bye to all of our amazing Kiwi friends. It’s been a blast here in this quirky city and we will never forget the friends we have made and our time spent in Wellington!

NZ Rugby Sevens

We have officially survived one of the biggest parties we will probably ever attend. Each year in February (middle of summer here), Wellington plays host to the New Zealand International Rugby Sevens. Over the past couple of years it has turned into a huge costume party. It's not just any costume party, it is one where 99.5% of the people are dressed up in elaborate costumes that are either homemade a year in advance or ordered online from the US. From the time we arrived in NZ, everyone was on a mission to find us tickets for this event because they sell out in 20 seconds. We were extremely lucky and were able to secure tickets a couple of weeks before the big weekend, which only meant one thing...what to wear as a costume?! We didn't get too crazy, but four of us went as "The Average Joe's" Dodgeball team. I wish I could describe some of the costumes we saw but no description or pictures would ever do it justice. So, Friday morning we wake up bright and early to start drinking and get ready to head down to the waterfront and eventually to the stadium...to "watch" Rugby! The stadium seats 35,000 people and only a small fraction of them actually watch the game (unless NZ is playing, of course). The weather was perfect and we did actually manage to watch a couple of the games on Friday before heading out on the town (well Clement did, I knew that if I went out and had to wake up early the next morning to do it all over again, I would have died). He got home at 4am and we got up at 9am to start all over again. There is this notion that everyone "saves themselves" for Saturday (the final day of the tournament) because "the city goes off!". Go off it did! It was complete mayhem in the stands, on the streets, in the bars and even in the harbour (Ninja Turtles, sperm, carrots, jailbirds, and many others all taking the plunge into the Wellington Harbour). They close off the main street which houses the bars and pubs and have one hell of a street party. The bars have their music playing outside and it was just one sweet as time! (ha, couldn't resist). People were up dancing on the bus stops and everything. It's amazing, because you could never get away with half of the stuff that was going on at home, but here the cops just love it and as long as you aren't disturbing others or property, you're good to go. In fact, there were less than 100 arrests the entire weekend (keeping in mind that 75,000 people went through the stadium in 2 days). Even the people who can't get tickets get dressed up in costume and join in on the partying! There seems to be extreme consequences if you don't dress up and I wouldn't dare risk it on this weekend!


I really wish I could describe the chaos and fun of this weekend, but you will just have to see if for yourselves. Wellington is the only place where the Sevens are taken to this level so if you ever get the chance to come to NZ, make sure you plan to be in Wellington for the Sevens weekend. We promise you would never forget it!



Oh yeah, the rugby. The final game was great as it was between two small pacific islands who can really play rugby- Samoa and Fiji. Fiji ended up winning the tournament, which was great to see and there were tons of Fijians at the game watching their native country take the trophy! Canada competed but didn't make it very far. I suggest us Canadians stick to ice hockey...

Beautiful New Zealand!

It’s been an amazing couple of weeks here in NZ. As you know, Clement’s parents (JP and Elva) arrived on January 25. We spent a couple of days here in Wellington showing them around before taking off on our road trip. We drove to Napier on our first night, which is a small town in the NZ wine region. It was a cute town with tons of art deco, as the entire place was rebuilt following a devastating earthquake in the 1930’s. We spent the night at a beautiful campground that is part of the “Top 10 Holiday Parks” chain that has locations all over NZ. From Napier, we continued up the east coast to Gisborne. Gisborne is the most eastern point in NZ and therefore sees the New Year and each day before any other place in the world. The town was quite dead, but we had a great time all the same. We left Gisborne to head to Rere Falls and Rere Rockslide which are 50km west of the town. It was one of the most beautiful drives we have ever done. Windy gravel roads through untouched farmland and green hills took us to this small area. Rere Rockslide is essentially a natural waterslide where the rocks have formed a huge hill. The constant flow of water over the rocks has smoothed them to the point where you can slide down on a boogie board or tube. It was raining really hard that day and we didn’t stop to buy a tube because we weren’t exactly sure what to expect, but when we got to the rockslide we quickly realized that we could have spent hours there had we been prepared. After stealing a child’s boogie board, Clem got to try the rockslide. Definitely a great time! After the rockslide we visited Rere Falls just down the road, where Clem and JP took advantage once again. We continued on to Ohope Beach and Whakatane where we spent a night and got to see the famous “Moko” the dolphin. This dolphin has been living in the Gisborne areas since 2006 and is famous for playing with everyone in the water. Everyone wants the chance to swim with Moko, but as he has been getting older his behavior has been getting more and more aggressive. When we were at the Info Site in Whakatane, everyone was informing us that Moko was in town and had been frequenting the ocean and river nearby. On our way out of town we noticed a crowd of cars and people stopped on the side of the road…it was Moko! He showed off by playing with a pylon while a couple of kids jumped in the river to play with him. We were happy we got to see him! After Whakatane, we drove a few hours away to Taupo- the skydiving capital of the world. This only meant one thing- someone had to do it! After a night at the campground enjoying the pool and sun, we got up and headed straight to “Taupo Tandem Skydiving” where Clem and JP took the plunge and jumped out of a plane at 12,000 feet. They had a great time, while Elva and I chose to stay on the ground and take pictures of the crazy fools. I haven’t completely counted it out yet, as there will many more opportunities to do so on the South Island. I’ll keep you posted! The adrenalin was pumping so we spent the rest of the day relaxing and preparing for our big hike the next morning.



Clement and I had been to Taupo and the Tongariro National Park on our way down the North Island from Auckland in November but the hike was cancelled due to poor weather. It has been something we wanted to do since arriving in NZ. Our shuttle picked us up at 0630 hrs to take us to the base of the mountain we were about to climb. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a 19.4km trek over a couple of active volcanoes. It was an absolutely spectacular day and definitely our best in NZ so far. We had our packed lunches and lots of TP because there is nothing on the track. We climbed for about 4 hours over various craters and got to see the Emerald Lakes, Red Crater and Blue Lake (once again, Kiwis are very literal!). With only 2 falls and a couple of blisters we arrived to the end point 6 hours and 45 minutes later. It was a great sense of accomplishment when we finished and are so happy that we went back to do it this time! After the hike, we headed back to Wellington and are here for the next few days before heading to the South Island to hike the Abel Tasman National Park!



We have the Rugby Sevens tournament this weekend in Wellington and the city has already started to erupt. Everyone dresses up (they take this very seriously!) and heads to the stadium for 2 days of partying…and maybe watching a match or two. Clement, myself, Terri and Alan are going as dodgeball players. The mullets and short shorts are ready and waiting for us to don them tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for the pictures….