New Zealand - Kaikoura

We were in Christchurch for 3 days, but we spent one day driving to Kaikoura (150km north of Christchurch) so we could do the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway, a 3 hour return walk on top of the cliffs beside the ocean. The day was perfect – sunny, but not too hot, and the walk was absolutely stunning. You start with a steep climb up the cliff but are rewarded with amazing views. The walk takes you through farmer's fields, so you have the ocean to one side, and beautiful fields to the other. It was a fairly easy walk, save for the steep bits at the either end. The colour of the ocean was a gorgeous turquoise blue, and I couldn't stop taking photos (big surprise)! We walked to South Bay (the end of the walk) along the top of the cliff/peninsula, and then made our way down to the ocean at South Bay to sit on the beach and enjoy our sandwiches we brought with us. After, we made our way back the same route, but at the Whaler's Lookout, we took the path down towards the water so we could finish the walk along the ocean. There were amazing limestone cliffs and rocks everywhere. The beach was so white because of all the rocks, and the water was so blue...gorgeous! We saw quite a few seals sunning themselves on the rocks, but they didn't seem too concerned with us! We were so close to the end of our walk (almost back at Point Kean), but couldn't finish walking along the beach/rocks because the tide had come in and was blocking our way. So, we made our way up a steep path (luckily
it had some footholes dug into it already) back up to the top of the cliff/peninsula so we could get back on the trail. It was an amazing day of walking and exploring! We highly suggest the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway if you every find yourself in the Christchurch area.

Where's Chris?

New Zealand - Christchurch

We flew into Christchurch on the afternoon of the 26^th. It was a bit overcast, but still lovely out. Once we got our car rental, we headed into the city to check into our hostel. Christchurch is a bit of a worn our city. It seems to only be surviving because of the backpackers. It doesn't help that they've had a couple serious earthquakes in the past few months, so a lot of buildings are boarded up, falling apart, and streets are blocked. The city also has a lot of beautiful old buildings, and it's really sad that quite a few of them have been destroyed or damaged from the earthquakes. Hopefully the city can rebuild and improve its image a bit! 

Either way, we still had a lovely time walking around and exploring. The city has an amazing botanical garden, and we spent a morning there exploring the grounds. The gardens have massive trees, beautiful flowers and it's wonderfully peaceful for being in the middle of the city. We also took a drive to Banks Peninsula, just outside of the city. We drove up into the hills and had amazing views of Lyttleton Harbour and Pegasus Bay. Even though the city seemed a bit tired, we really enjoyed our time in Christchurch.

Massive hydrangea at Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Christchurch Cathedral

Taylor's Mistake, just outside of Christchurch

Lyttleton Harbour

Leaving Australia

Hello friends!

Sorry for the lack of blogging, but the past two weeks have been quite crazy for us. We were busy packing up our apartment, cancelling power/phones/insurance/internet, moving, cleaning, and going to Wet 'n Wild with our friends from Sydney. It was a crazy couple of weeks.

But, now we are in oh so lovely New Zealand and enjoying every minute of being here! We spent 3 nights in Christchurch before we headed to Mount Cook for a day of hiking. Now we are in Oamaru for a quick stop before we head to Invercargill for 3 nights. The scenery is beautiful in New Zealand, with every few minutes along the road offering another picture perfect opportunity for post card, desktop background, or lifelong memory.

For those of you interested, yes, the entire country looks like the landscapes depicted in The Lord of the Rings movies. There are also millions of sheep, tons of farmland, next to no people, and lots of talk about rugby. Trip highlights so far are: driving up hills so high on roads so skinny that you get butterflies in your stomach, coming within inches of seals, penguins, and sheep, and Andrea driving on the wrong side of the road in a manual and trying to overtake a semi-truck road blocking us, and it was her first day driving in nine months...scary!

Right now we're in sleepy Oamaru, a transient pit-stop town if you've ever seen one, but it is the steampunk capital of the New Zealand, it hosts a wonderful whiskey distillery and licensed tea room where you can sample the local whiskey, and it is home to a colony of little penguins that come to shore every evening. Back in the 1870s, Oamaru was a bumping town/city and most of the old buildings are still standing and being used today, so it has some great history.

Today we are off to Invercargill, but will stop to see the Moeraki Boulders along the way and hopefully grab some delicious seafood chowder at a cafe we read about in the Lonely Planet...yummy!

Our Fabulous Day

For the first Saturday in weeks it was sunny and warm. We have been cooped up in our apartment since Christmas because of the rain, and with the floods, we have really been house bound since the buses and trains were canceled for a few days. After too many days stuck in our apartment with cabin fever, we were so excited for a sunny Saturday.

Once again we rented a car and decided to drive up the Sunshine Coast to Eumundi and Noosa. We did this same trip before Christmas, but unfortunately is was pouring rain that day (big surprise), so it wasn't the most enjoyable of trips. This time, the sun was shining!

As I wrote before, Eumundi has an amazing market on Saturdays. You could spend your entire day walking the stalls, sampling the food, enjoying the music, and spending lots and lots of money. Having been there before, we knew what we wanted to get and made sure to pick up some souvenirs for our families. We also bought some passionfruit for cheap. YUMMY!

After a couple hours at the market, it was time to drive to Noosa for an afternoon at the beach. We were so lucky to get a prime parking spot, as it's school holidays right now and very, very busy. We found ourselves a lovely spot on the sand and just enjoyed the sunshine, breeze, ocean and our books. When we started to feel like the sun was a bit too strong, we decided to grab a beer at the Noosa Surf Life Saving Club. It's a great restaurant/pub right on the water and we were able to sit on the patio, overlooking the water, and enjoy a beer! We went back for some more time in the sun before we decided to call it a day.

On our way home, we wanted to drive through a town called Buderim, a mountain town about 30 minutes inland from the coast. After a long day in the sun, we were hoping for a nice little McDonald's detour so we could cool off with some ice cream and iced coffee. We plugged in the coordinates into the GPS and we were off to the races, ready to satiate our desires for iced yummies. To our great dismay, upon entering the house of Ronald, we were greeted to one of the most disasteful signs, proclaiming: "We are out of iced cream and iced coffees." Snacktime fail. No ice cream? That's just not Australian. So we made our way to Buderim, which has some amazing waterfall walks, but every time we've wanted to go, it's been raining. Even though it was getting a bit late in the afternoon for a hike, we decided to go there anyway and check out the town. It was definitely worth the drive! It's a beautiful town located in the 'mountains' with amazing views all the way to the ocean.

After our detour to Buderim, we hit the highway for our drive back to Brisbane. As we were getting closer to the Glass House Mountains, there was a road sign for a scenic lookout point. We decided to make another detour and find out what the lookout was all about. After quickly exiting the highway we followed the beaten up signs to the lookout. Based on the quality of these signs and the heavily pot-holed road, we were fairly certain this was a route meant to lure naive travelers into the woods for all kinds of "Wolf Creek" badness, but like true adventurers, we live for the thrill of the unknown! The lookout, much to our dismay, was not a 'Drive Thru' lookout and required a fairly steep 1km walk up a hill, but at the top was the most amazing 360 degree view of the Sunshine Coast. To the east we could see the Glass House Mountains, to the north we could see Caloundra, to the west we could see the Pacific Ocean, and to the south was Brisbane. It was such an amazing lookout, and we would never have known to go there if not for the road sign!

After our second detour of the day, we made it back to Brisbane, though we missed our exit off the highway and ended up taking the toll bridge over the Brisbane River into the Southern suburbs. Luckily we were able to turn around as soon as we got off the bridge, just to get back on it again to go back over to get to the Northern suburbs. We were both laughing and enjoyed our third detour of the day! And even though we should be dinged $6 in toll fares, because of the flooding, all toll roads are free.

It was a really great day and we were both so happy to get out of the apartment and enjoy the sunshine!

We hope that you have as good a Saturday as we did!

Eumundi Markets

Driving from Eumundi to Noosa

Noosa

Buderim - looking towards the ocean

Buderim!

Wild Horse Mountain Lookout - Chris and the Glass House Mountains

Glass House Mountains

Fruits and Veggies

Empty produce shelves at our local Coles. Except for a couple soft pineapples and a few questionable grapefruits, there is not a single piece of produce. It was quite shocking to walk in and see completely empty shelves.

The floods in Queensland have really had an impact on the availability of fruits and veg. Farms have been completely wiped out, roads are blocked, train lines are destroyed. Because of this, it's almost impossible to find fruits and veggies. And when you do, they aren't cheap. Oh well. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade..if you can even find lemons, that is!