Driving towards the Kahurangi National Forest on the South Island

The Mini Graveyard

At Makara with Odie and Joel (near Wellington on the North Island)

Joel, Odie and Darrel at Makara

We have finally found a home, Darrel and I signed 6 month lease on a 1 bedroom flat. We have been shopping for furniture and setting up house. We have also been looking for work, and as is his style, Darrel has gotten the first job he applied for.

Here is a summary of our trip to Christchurch:
We have crossed the Cook Strait (Wellington to Picton), smooth sailing from island to island. I was pretty worried about getting seasick. The day we flew in to Wellington had been a bumpy ride and the newspaper showed the Interislander ferry was tipping on its side in the massive waves that rocked through the passageway. But our voyage was beautiful calm and sunny! No dolphins though. I have been told that some day I will have my own nz dolphin story. Supposedly they are quite common, for now I will continue to relive the time a fellow traveler rented a kayak in the Milford sound and had them swimming along with her as she traveled through the fjords. The ferry docks in Picton on the South Island, we took the Queen Charlotte Sound Road to Nelson. It wove around the edge of the sound, we took it pretty slow, there were a few small slips here and there (gravel in the road). It was just so dazzling it was hard to fly past it all.

That night we attempted a roadside camp in the van, we ended up driving to campground in Nelson for reasons that I can’t reveal. Nelson is a beautiful place, I think it gets the most sunny days out of all regions of NZ. As I was told yesterday, “it’s easy to live life there, your whole life could just pass you by”.

After leaving Nelson, we traveled through the Kahurangi National forest down the center of the south island. There was a sign at the beginning of the drive warning that there were no service stations for the next 100 K and they were right, sheep, cows, plantation forests and native bush were all that that could be seen, with the odd house tucked in along the valley here and there. We followed the river valley, and the hills got bigger and bigger until their jagged peaks were snowcapped and the frost/snow line from the night before was well below treeline into the native bush.

We were heading for Muruia Hot Springs, so we pulled off into a rest area just north of it and found free camping signs. Thank you DOC! (DOC= Department of Conservation). In the morning we saw signs for a faultline fence, meaning we were sleeping directly on the fault and the fence in the meadow shows how much movement there has been since the fence was erected. We didn’t check it out though. The mist was pretty heavy, well you could call it rain, but the scenery was gorgeous.

At Muruia, we were greeted by the familiar smell of sulpher. There are four boulder lined pools, each of various temps- Bath tub temp, hot but not too hot, really hot and freezing cold. It was so nice, Darrel and lounged around in the “hot but not too hot pool”, the boulders create different seats for you to perch upon. We had just seen a few people, but mainly had the pool to ourselves. Near the end of our dip we were joined by two people, one from Sydney and the other from Christchurch- Jenny. After calling a UN session and trying to solve the world’s problems, we discovered that Jenny had a flat for rent in Christchurch.

So we exchanged contact details and headed for the plains of Canterbury. Feeling refreshed and relaxed, we followed the aqua-blue braided river out of the mountains towards the sea.

In Christchurch, we met up with Jaime and Melissa, and their two kids Kya and Azlan. We stayed at Melissa’s parent’s house where they were house-sitting. The house is on the hills South of the city, our first day in the city was snow/hail/rain. But the second day was clear and blue, and we were rewarded with an amazing view. Snowy peaks to the north and west, a wonderful playground to behold.

Darrel and I spent two full days driving around looking at apartments for rent, but none could really compare to what Jenny had to offer. And that is how we found our new home!