Kaikoura then back to the North Island

One of the seal pups

After we left Christchurch we had yet another new bus driver who was annoying and made us sit at the front so he could tell us stories (brag) about his travels. Kaikoura is the place to go whale watching and swimming with seals, but as we have no budget for such activities, we simply went for a walk on the beach, had beans on toast for tea and then watched a dvd (she's the man) in the dvd lounge with some German girls.





The hostel was quite nice and I had an early night and the best nights sleep in a while.
We were pleased to bump into our old driver, Scott, in the hostel and find out that he would be driving us to the ferry the next day.

On the Inter-islander ferry

The next day we set off to Picton, the ferry terminal. On the way we stopped at some rocks where we climbed down and got really close to loads of seals. Hundreds of seals and all about 3metres away from us! It was really nice. We continued on to the ferry but the driver had booked us on the wrong one so we would have to wait an hour in the terminal whilst everyone else got the earlier one. Luckily, whilst we were waiting, Jemma went to speak to the check in desk and they said there was free space on the earlier one and that we could get on. 

We spent most of the 3 hour journey out on deck marvelling at the sounds – it is like something out of Jurassic park. We spent the journey with the Malaysian girl (Lisa) and two English girls who were on a rtw trip. When we got to Wellington, there was a bit of confusion as there was no Magic bus to pick us up so we all clubbed together and got a minibus to the hostel. We are staying in the same hostel as we did last time because we loved it last time but this time is a completely different experience. Last time we were in a 4 bed en suite with Yoshi and this time we are in an 8 bed dorm with dangerously high bunks that are a real challenge to climb in and out of. We were happy however, to find that we had nice room-mates, including a girl from Leeds who was doing the rtw trip the other way round to us and gave us loads of tips for Asia. Yesterday we went to the Parliament building (the Beehive) in the morning for a free tour and then in the afternoon we went shopping for beach clothes for Fiji. We then spent a Saturday night watching a Disney film (!) (princess and the frog) in the dvd lounge because we can't afford another night out. How sad are we.

Today (Sunday) we have been to the Te Papa museum again because we loved it so much last time and we also bought a fresh fish off a boat for tea (I am not loving this fiji diet!). I am currently typing this downstairs whilst Jemma watched Nani McPhee in the TV room because there is a boy in our room with the stinkiest feet I have ever known and I have been forced to evacuate the dorm because it is that bad. However, he has just come and sat next to us downstairs so I may have to move again. Ahhh, hostel life, who wouldn't love it? :)

p.s. One good thing about hostelling here is earwigging into German conversations – its difficult not to because they are by far the majority