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We boarded the Kiwi bus at 8:45am and were now bound for Kaikoura, which in miles isn't a ridiculous journey but due to the New Zealand landscape and roads, takes alot longer than if you did the same mileage on the M3.
Noramlly the bus stops at various places to do walks and take in different sights, this wasn't the case today, it was just about getting to Kaikoura at a half decent time. We did make one stop though at Lake Pukaki, from where you could see Mt Cook in the distance. The lake was almost surreal in colour, which was a bright turquoise. We were finally granted a near enough clear day, which gave us a great view over the lake and of Mt Cook. This stop was only a brief one though to get a picture before it was time to eat up some more miles.
Without boring you with the details of what was no more than a long bus journey, we had to change buses on the outskirts of Christchurch and with this complete finished our journey, arriving in Kaikoura about 7:00pm. About 10 minutes outside of Kaikoura, driving along the coast line, we did see a pod of dolphins swimming close to the shore. Belle was even lucky enough to see one jump out of the water completly.
Long day of travel over, we found our hostel, dumped our bags and headed out for some 'fush & chups' on the recomendation of our bus driver. Now greasy 'fush & chups' was probably the last thing we wanted after our Ferg experience the previous night, but neither of us could be bothered to cook, so that was that. It was actually really nice and I once again had fish, along with Belle having a chicken burger the night before, we were doing well.
After a shower and good sleep we both felt refreshed for our first day in Kaikoura. Kaikoura is a fairly small town, which is renowned for its whale, dolphin and seal watching / swimming trips and we were deciding which if any of these we should do. We had a look at various leaflets, before deciding to take a walk to the shop and help us decide. The weather was nice and sunny but as it is right on the coast, the wind made it alot cooler than it looked.
Food bought and both slightly chilly we got back to the hostel and had decided that we would try something slightly different than the obvious and do a horse trek. It is something which we both fancied doing throughout our trip but never got round to doing it, mainly due to the price. Here though was the cheapest we had seen and with only a few days left in New Zealand, we thought we would go for it.
We went to the hostel front desk to book it for the following day, when we were told there was space on the 2:00pm trek that day. Well, there is no time like the present so we booked it, had lunch and waited to be picked up.
The 'ranch' (not sure if this is the right word for this) was about 15 minutes out of town and when we arrived, we paid, got given a helmet and a horse. Belle has ridden a horse years ago so had a little experience, I however have not, but we were assured that this was not a problem.
Belle was first to hop on her horse, 'Dale', which she managed quite easily. I was next, and with the aid of my long legs got on 'Ace' first time. There were two other trekkers and a guide in our little group which headed out into the country side.
I dont think we have given horses as much credit as they deserve in the past, they are pretty amazing animals. Riding one, although we had well trained horses, was easy enough and fairly similar to driving. If you wanted to turn left, pull left on the reign, turn right, pull right and if you wanted to stop, pull the reign with both hands, easy.
Making our way through some woodland it was obvious that both mine and Belle's horses were, how to put this?....little fatties, as they wanted to eat at every opportunity. Which reminded us both a bit of the elephant we were on in Chaing Mai, the only diffence was that the horse didn't spit it back out all over us, which was nice.
Next it was up and down some slight slopes and through some bog, which the horses again handled with ease. We were riding (if you can call it that) for about half an hour before we came to a bit of a clearing and a river, which we were to cross. Now the river wasn't very deep but we still had to cross it none the less. Extra pressure came from our guide who told us we had to keep the horse moving at all times whilst crossing as otherwise they stop in the middle and decide to have a water fight, (with their hooves rather than supersoakers) leaving the horse and rider pretty soggy.
Belle and Dale, made it look easy, Ace and myself were not as graceful, with Ace deciding to crab down stream a bit before getting to dry land, but the most important bit was that we were not caught up in a horse water fight. Due to being right next to the river the terrain changed once again to rocks and stones, which our horses seemed to laugh at, as they safetly took us along the river bank.
It was now time to head back across the river, again without reinacting Thai new year, which was achieved by both (and everyone for that matter), happy horses, happy guide, happy Belle & Matt.
We were now making our way back to the 'ranch' and were told that there was an opportunity to have a bit of a gallop ? before we arrived back. Following the guide, who had persuaded his horse to have a jog, Dale and Ace followed in suit, which myself and Belle found very amusing. We slowed down again and our guide gave us tip on how to 'go with' the horses strides so were were not getting chucked around as much. We both took this in, but when we picked up some speed again, it went out of the window and were once again chucked about in our sadles, laughing.
We arrived back and it was time to say goodbye to Dale and Ace and performing the dismount. Belle this time wasn't as graceful in her dimount (due to her little legs, she had further to fall) as before but managed to do this none the less and thanks to my legs managed to get off as well. We had both wanted to do a horse trek and we can both say that we are very glad we finally did, it was brilliant fun! The only downside is that I think Belle now wants a horse for christmas.
We were dropped back off at our hostel and with the weather still nice, we walked back into town and got ourselves an ice cream. This time we were a bit more prepared for the wind, taking an extra layer with us.
On the way into town we walked past several large trees (not sure what kind, slightly alpine looking) when we noticed that one of them had a traffic cone sitting right at the top of it. Someone had obviously climbed up there and put it on the top, each to their own and all that, but it was only after looking at a few more tree's when we noticed that about 5 of them had, had, the same treatment, obviously the thing to do round these parts.
After a short storll and ice cream we returned to the hostel, so we would have places to walk to the following day, as Kaikoura is not the biggest of towns.
That evening we made ourselves a nice noodle, veg stir fry, finally eating some vegetables other than potato's than had been deep fried, it was a nice change after all that grease of the previous two days.
It was a typical December morning when we woke up for our thrid day in Kaikoura, blue skies with not a cloud in sight and hot sunshine, shorts at the ready. After finding out we had some mouldy bread and therefore no toast for our breakfast / lunch we thought we would take a stoll in the sunshine and treat ourselves to some lunch out.
We found a nice little cafe on the small highstreet, ordered and found a seat outside in the sun. Both our dishes came with some salad, which we both enjoyed, fresh salad had been pretty rare on this trip. After our lunch we started walking back in the other direction, along the coast and towards Kaikoura's seal colony.
We knew which direction the seal colony was in but not how far it was, not that this bothered us as we walked along the sea front, listening to the waves crash against the beach. Although we did not know how far we would have to walk, we both thought it was gong to be less than we actually did. After about an hour and a half we arrived, greeted by some sleeping seals on the rocks. We made our way down towards them and got to see them up close. There was about 5 of them in close proximity to us but they all seemed to be unfaized by people taking pictures and talking whilst they were trying to sleep, except one, who was a bit more vocal. Now it never looked like the seal was going to maul anyone or anything like that but I think we just wanted to make his presence known. Not wanting to be the main headline on New Zealand news that night, "Couple mauled by seal", we took our pictures and left them to get some more sleep. All we had to do now was complete the journey back.
Now I don't mind walking, actually quite like it, but Belle does not feel the same way about it as me. We did make it back though and after a quick google search we found out we walked 7km in total, so well done to Belle, especially as she was in flip - flops.
After resting our feet for a while at the hostel we then had to walk back into town to get some dinner for that night. Belle stumbled across a sushi shop, which as it was closing, everything was half price, whilst I got a couple of bits from the supermarket. We ate our dinner and spent the evening, chilling out having a couple of cold beers in the hostels big lounge area. We were also trying to master backwards solitaire (kings instead of aces and the cards count up), which we managed to do twice out or roughly 15 attempts.
We had travelled on the Kiwi bus for the last time when getting to Kaikoura, and had booked a Inter - City bus (like a greyhound or national express) back down to Christchurch. We checked out and hung around the hostel before heading down to catch our bus, which was going to take us to our final stop in New Zealand.
- comments
lethal Belle - remember, a horse is for life, not just for Christmas! XXX
EECU south west Can tell it's still going so well! Amazing to see seals like that too! Closest we get is on BBC's Frozen Planet!!
Belle If I promise to look after it can we keep it in the garden please Liz? :-) x
lethal Well, I suppose it's more environmentally friendly than a Flymo and just think of all that manure (how polite!)XXX