July 17th (Friday) - Day 138 - Kaikoura
We decided that if we have time we can see more of Christchurch when we get back in 2 weeks after our loop of the first island is complete. Hence we booked the first sector of our bus pass up north to Kaikoura. As soon as we left Christchurch there were snow topped mountains as far as the eye could see. This is when I knew I was going to fall in love with New Zealand. Everywhere you looked you were treated a really nice view. Everything from mountains to valleys. Another thing that impressed me was the size of the rivers. When we were driving past the biggest ones were only a few metres wide, but the river bed was hundreds of metres wide - it would be impressive to see that in full flow. So many things I could write about but I'll save you from it. We arrived in Kaikoura at lunch time. Our driver had booked our hostel for us (all part of the NZ service) and we were checked in and out to explore within minutes. The back drop to our hostel was a huge mountain ranged (you guessed it) covered in snow. It really was a sight to behold. 15 degrees where I was standing and snow 3km away. We walked into town and were out the other side in minutes. Then we climbed the hill to a look out point. It took over an hour but the views were more than worth it. The sea surrounded most of our location and in the other direction was the town by the sea and the mountains in the back. You will hear me say this word loads over the next few weeks - it was breath taking. We walked back to sea level and follow the road round the coast for another hour to reach our next destination; a fur seal colony. Having never seen anything like this it was another breath taking site. The seals were mostly sun bathing in the grass and a few on the rocks. They didn't care we were there at all. We climbed the hill beside the colony to take in yet more views of seals, mountains and sea before trekking miles back to the town. We stopped in a wicked shop with loads of great t-shirts and the next day I really regretted not buying some. All the guide books said to try the crayfish for dinner but at 110 dollars we settled for fish and chips. I then got to try something new; a sheep shag. This is a beer (not the New Zealand/Welsh past time). Such a nice beer (not even close to Beer Lao though). I had a few too many of them and went back to the hostel and got chatting to some of the staff about New Zealand until the early hours. They told us that in Kaikoura you could swim with a pod of 300 dolphins but we had dismissed it thinking it would be to cold; apparently not so we are going to regret not doing that.

July 18th (Saturday) - Day 139 - Kaikoura to Nelson
I thought the bus today was going to be a long boring drive. Turns out that this was not going to be the case. Our very first stop has to go into one of the top 5 things I have ever seen. Not far out of Kaikoura and 500 metre walk from the road/rugged coast line you come a waterfall with a massive pool below. In that pool there were about 30 seal pups swimming and splashing about, with the parents lazing around in the trees to the side. Firstly its amazing they could even reach this place. The river was more like a tiny creek and it was a steep climb to reach the pool. I don't know of anywhere else in the world were you'd see seals in the woods. As it turns out the rest of the day was a long drive but I didn't have to pull my book out my bag once as the scenery was stunning the whole way. Half way we dropped 90% of the people on the coach off as they were getting a ferry to the north island and in turn a number of people joined us from the north, including this American couple who were laughing really loudly at their ipod while the guy belched really loudly; slightly rude but hey. Once we arrived into Nelson we had a quick walk around town and spent most the night planning when to catch the next sector of our bus. We soon worked out we would not have enough time for everything. Anyone mind if we extend our trip by another 6 months just to fit New Zealand?