Saturday 23rd May-

We left Carole and Antony on Monday morning and caught the local bus into Christchurch and got to our hostel early afternoon. That afternoon we had a wander around town and we went for a roast dinner at a pub that Antony had reccommended.
On Tuesday we looked around the shops and we bumped into a couple we knew from the MAgic bus and had made friends with in Franz Josef, so it was good to see them again. There wasn't a lot to do but it was quite a pretty place.
The next day we got the bus through to Kaikora. On the way we stopped for some breakfast. Whilst there, another bus pulled up and a guy that Chris lived next door to at uni got off, which was very random.
In Kaikora, we stopped off at a seal colony for some photos and we could get really close to them. Kaikora was a very small place and was very cold. Luckily, Louis and Laura (the couple we knew) were staying at the same hostel as us, so we had someone to talk to. We had booked to do the Whale-watch that afternoon but we were told on the way that it was cancelled due to the weather, although it looked calm enough to us. We rebooked for the next day and then the day after but they were all cancelled. We ended up just killing time by looking around the shops (all 4 of them) and watching tv etc. We were a little disappointed but we are hoping to see some whales in South Africa.
This morning we were planning on travelling to Wellington, but when we got on the bus we were told the ferries weren't running because of the very strong winds. We have to wait in Picton until they are running again. There is nothing to do in Picton so we are a bit annoyed.

Tuesday 26th May-

On Saturday night we bought a phone card as we had to ring up hostels and things, and we both phoned home as it was really cheap, which was good. We went out for a curry that evening and came back a bit too full to fit in the free apple crumble from our hostel. On Sunday morning we had to check out early incase we managed to get a ferry. We both walked down to the ferry terminal at about 12.30pm, it seemed windier and colder than the day before. We found out that 2 ferries would be going across and we managed to get on the one at 2.30, so we rushed back to get our bags. When we checked onto the ferry we were told that it was still pretty rough on the sea. The first hour or so was ok, not too choppy, so we got some lunch and sat at the front of the boat. Then we got into the open sea and it became ridiculously choppy. The ferry was rocking so much and there were some really loud bangs as big waves crashed into the side of the boat. We were in open sea for about 2-3 hours as theyhad to go slowly and eventually it got to both of us; Helen was sick 5 times and even Chris was sick once. A staff woman told Helen she looked very pale and gave her a cup of ice water. We finally made it to Wellington and went to our hostel. We had a nice room so we just stayed in bed and watched TV to recover. The Magic bus wasn't leaving Wellington on Monday so we decided to stay another night and then just get an Intercity bus straight to Auckland. We missed out a couple of places in the north island but we weren't bothered about seeing them. We left Wellington at 9am this morning and just got to Auckland at about 8pm, so it was a long day. We will be spending our time here sorting ourselves out and getting ready for South Africa.