mrsjono

Spent two nights in Kaikoura before moving on to Christchurch. The Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway is a great way to watch the abundance of marine life and take in the coastal views. I don't remember the exact route we took but I know we must have walked a long way because we passed the Fyffe House towards the end. The walkway is well sign-posted and there are informative signboards at key locations.

Parts of the walkway cross private land. We hit a very muddy stretch at the beginning but soon forgot about our wet feet.


牛西兰


Limestone Bay


Black-billed gulls are found only in NZ and are the most threatened gull species in the world.


Fishing in a canoe - one of the three pouwhenua (wooden post) at South Bay


The rainbow we saw earlier appeared again at the intersection of Scarborough St and South Bay track


It was still visible in the far distance when we stopped for a bite at South Bay viewpoint


Free as a bird~


No idea how did we veer off the main track we went ahead anyway and it led us to a colony of wild seals.


Aper?


Seals spend most of their time resting on the rocky shores in the winter.


They weren't moving or making noise it was best to keep a distance and leave them alone.


Army of seals


We had enough of seals for the day and decided it was time to head back but didn't know how. There were no signs so we just continued walking until we saw this track up a hill.


This was way more difficult than I thought. It was a very sharp ascent and turned out to be a spiderman climb on all fours.


I was struggling because my beanie kept slipping over my eyes, I couldn't see what's ahead and couldn't look down either. I couldn't hold my beanie in my hand because my hands were grabbing the grass at the sides. Ended up stuffing the beanie in my coat even though I was already so hot and sweating inside. I was a clumsy spiderman in the wrong attire!


It was only after I made it to the top that I realised how freaking long and steep the cliff was. (Jaw drop)


Kaikoura means eat crayfish in Maori. We were quite looking forward to this especially after walking 5 hours. It was quite expensive so we shared a half lobster meal that comes with bread, rice, fish fillet and salad.


In Kaikoura, hostels are named after marine life. There's Dolphin Lodge, Fish Tank, Bad Jelly, Lazy Shag (a bird). We chose Albatross because it was the highest rated BBH hostel in Kaikoura at that time. They had many woofers even during winter but they don’t seem to change bedsheets…?

To celebrate the end of the apple season, Inwood treated the crew to a farewell lunch at Chokdee (means good luck in Thai). This was the same place where we had our first meal in Motueka, sharing a stingy portion of tom yum soup. If not for this treat, we would not patronise again because the portion size was rather small even for one person. Oh well not complaining further considering we didn't have enough food at the previous end of season party in Martinborough. The crew was already closely bonded when we joined; it was more difficult for them to say goodbye to each other. We managed to stay till the end for a photo with the owners as we were really grateful they gave us a job at such short notice. I was happy that the end of this job completes three months of horticulture work (yay no more) and the next thing to do was to head to the nearest immigration branch to apply for a visa extension. But wait we can't leave Motueka as yet cos our landlord refused to pro-rate the weekly rent so we were stuck with her for another three nights. Took off early in the morning without saying a word. Good riddance!!

On our 104th day in New Zealand, we jumped off a plane 13,000ft from the sky. There were four pairs tandem diving and I was the first to go. At 5,000ft or something, a female staff opened the door and dropped out of the plane without any hesitation. My hands were getting sweaty. Chris opened the door and I swung my legs out as instructed. I closed my eyes and we dropped. I screamed till I couldn't breathe. My stomach felt abit sick. He tapped me to stretch out my hands but I was still scared and continued to hold onto the harness with one hand. Parachute opened and we shot back up in the air again. It felt amazing floating in the sky with my feet dangling in the air, taking in the breathtaking views of the Kaikoura Ranges and Abel Tasman. Chris pointed out to me where rs was, spiralling down in a blue parachute. (He said he asked his tandem master for stunts and he got giddy afterwards lol) I'm not spending shit loads of money for photos and videos so I secretly kept my camera in my jacket pocket and it jumped down with me... just for this one photo with my tandem master after landing. Awesome deal from GrabOne only $189 with Skydive Abel Tasman~! 

Envy apples are considered branded, like the LV of bags. They are a hybrid of Royal Gala and Braeburn; the flesh doesn't brown after being cut. It is crunchier and sweeter than other breeds. This was the last batch of apples we packed. 

没有它会抓狂 有了它会疯狂!

Stayed with a Thai lady (a calculative one) from work for a month and her house did not have wifi. We didn't have any mobile data (can't remember why probably because 2degrees didn't have any attractive plans at that time) and the nearest legitimate use of wifi was McDonalds or the library in town. Library would have closed by the time we ended work so we could only go to McDonalds. We would walk about 25mins one way to McDonalds in the cold nights just to use wifi. Needed internet access not for leisure web surfing but to find our next job and accommodation. Back then he was using a half smart HTC Windows phone and I didn't have one and relied on my broken iPod. Sometimes he would carry his laptop (I couldn't take mine because I left my battery at home - worst decision ever) in case we run out of internet as each device has only up to 100mb. Me being me, I sneaked onto Facebook once and used up all the quota on his laptop and he was SO MAD at me. When desperate times call for illegitimate measures, we stood outside or sneaked into the hostels we previously stayed in with the unused internet vouchers we had saved up for rainy days. Those four weeks were inconvenient enough to make me remember that I have taken wifi for granted. On some nights where we didn't go out for wifi, we entertained ourselves by watching videos of our younger days or singing to the songs on his phone. After Motueka, we hardly visit the golden arches and when we did it was for the food and not internet anymore because we finally had mobile data and internet access in subsequent accommodations.