wanderlust: takin' the ferry...

What is this craziness, you may ask? Just a little something from the pie shop...a sausage, split down the middle, some buttery mashed potatoes in the 'bun' and then a bunch of cheese melted on top. It made me shudder just looking at it. Josh couldn't even finish the whole thing (though this was after he ate a steak and cheese pie).

So Dan and Josh and I were hanging out on Thursday night, trying to figure out what we were going to do for the weekend. We hemmed, and hawed, and then we got the bright idea to TAKE THE FERRY! Yay. So this required getting to Wellington on Friday afternoon, making it to the ferry to check in and then....wait. For like an hour. Then you get to drive on the ferry (we took the car over). So here's out line up, waiting patiently to get into the boat.

This is the Interislander. This bad boy holds like 1400 people. They have several boats, this one being the biggest. We thought that we got to go on the big guy, but turns out we were on a little guy on the way to Picton. It was fun.

Goin' on the ferry!!

Since we got on the ferry at about 6pm, so it was dark during the 3 hour tour. Dan thought that he saw lots of mountains, but nobody believed him. He might have been right.
We stayed in Picton for the night, and then woke up nice and early to drive south down the east coast to Kaikoura. Kai=food/eat, koura=crawfish, so it means eat crawfish. If you you don't roll your Rs and pronounce it like cora, it means eat bird feathers! Yum. Anyhoo, the mountains are the Kaikoura range. The highest peak in the range is the 2880-meter Tapuae o Uenuku, which translates to 'footprint of the rainbow.' Pretty, huh?

Josh and I went kayaking while Dan went to play with the fur seals. Here's Josh in the kayak...paddling and paddling and just not getting anywhere! I can't imagine why.

Fur seals having fun on the rocks. Turns out they're not lazy, like you would think, seeing them sleeping, lounging, sleeping, floating, sleeping. They go out to the deep blue and spend up to 8 days finding food, diving up to 250 meters! Crazy!

Wow. It's not pretty at all.

Our lovely kayak guide acting as photographer.

This guy just glided into the water, twirling around and flipping around next to our kayak. Nice! He's looks kinda like a rock in the picture. Except furry.

OOOhh, and then we stopped at a B&B that does sheep shearing shows. SO COOL! Learned about all kinds of different wool, and how to shear them and separate the wool and all kinds of fun things. These guys have sheep that have fast growing long hair, and get sheared twice a year. BUT the price of the wool from one sheep is $9, so yearly the wool from one of the long haired sheep only gets you $18.

Neekked sheep!

Josh has horns.

Then we wandered around the peninsula, where the fur seals hang out, and looked at tide pools.

Starfish!

Here's our hobbit hole to get back to our hostel. DUCK!

Wandered around town, checked out some shops and this cute little park area.

Good looking beach.

We went to eat dinner, and on the way back saw this sign...not to worry, the shag is a bird here.

Sunday we went whale watching!!

Josh scanning the horizon for whale spouts.

After chasing this guy around by listening for the clicks with a big ole microphone that the capital puts underwater, we saw him on the surface. Usually they'll come up for like 10-30 minutes on the surface. Or something like that.

Whale spout!

And then there's the tail moment, when the whale starts diving waaaaaay down.

Then we headed to a spot where there are lots of dusky dolphins. Apparently Kaikoura is one of the best places to see them. These guys are crazy acrobats. They leap out of the water and somersault and flip and spin and I couldn't get a good picture cause they move too fast!

And then we stopped by another place with all the seals again. They camouflage very well in this rock! Can you see them all?

More lovely skies.

Still perfecting the car shots.

This is on the drive back up to Picton from Kaikoura. It's the Marlborough area, which is the northeast part of South Island. It's known for its dry climate, the Marlborough Sounds, and Sauvignon blanc.