March 9th Part One

I haven’t properly wrote a blog in about three weeks (sorry if it’s a long one). There has been a very good reason for that. Rachel and Adam came to see me for a visit! It was so much fun to have them here. At times we annoyed each other just like always, but I think we’re growing up to be really good friends. The itinerary went as follows:

Three weeks ago I picked up Rachel at the Auckland airport and we headed straight for raglan to spend a few days on the beach. The weather wasn’t as ideal as we would of hoped…but don’t worry we got plenty of sun time. Then we headed to the Tauhara Centre in Taupo, where we exchanged some rigorous work (and you people think I’m just on vacation all the time J ) for three nights in the Chalet. The Chalet is an adorable little cottage, built over the edge of a cliff, that has one of the most picturesque views of Lake Taupe (or anywhere) I’ve ever seen. Catherine and Nassir were once again magnificent hosts and I’ll never forget Stan’s cooking.

Rach and I then took a bit of a road trip down to Wellington, where we enjoyed a drink overlooking the harbor, before hopping on the ferry to the South Island. The ferry left at 9:25pm, so we got to Picton (entrance city to the SI) at about 1am, where we then had a most enjoyable night sleep in the car. The next day we drove down one of the most scenic road you could ever imagine to Christchurch, where killed two birds with one stone by picking up both Adam and Eli (our cousin in law?…something like that…Wendy’s nephew). The four of us piled into Steve (I still don’t know how we managed) and headed north to a town called Kaikoura. We stayed in a little self contained room just across the street from the ocean. The following day we did a really cool walk around the shore at low tide and came across tons of seals lounging about on the rocks. It was one of the cooler sights I’ve seen (along with the baby seals…but I’m getting to that).