Hello!!!

ok so were finally here and started our holiday! the flight went off without a hitch and we arrived in christchurch to pick up our hire car and had a quick senic tour through the city on the way out. its a nice city but seems like its all suburbia, for one of the biggest cities of the south island its fairly small. but the towns and villages are even smaller. we headed out to arkaroa for our first night. its a small village on the banks peninsula in akaroa harbour. it was settled by the french and is still got a distinctly french counrtyside feel about it. at the minute its quite warm during the day (up to bout 30) but gets quite cool over night (15). the sun doesnt set till about 9ish and its not dark till about 10. after dinner mum decided to paddle in the harbour but it was quite chilly, despite the fact their were people swimming in it. last night i got very little sleep as father decided to snore like a chainsaw so hav been quite tired today. thankfully tonight i hav a separate room so will slepp well hopefully. this morning we left akaroa and headed back towards christchurch stopping at another harbourside village called lyttelton. theres a really big tunnel there that goes straight under the mountain. the scenery here is really something amazing. so beautiful. we continued on through christchurch and headed north to kaikoura. we arrived here early this afternoon. the hotel is very nice, but very yellow from the outside. we went and booked a whale watching expedition for tommorrow and will hopefully see sperm whales (and maybe other species too) dolphins, seals, and lots of birdlife including hopefully albatross. we then went for a drive to the point to see the local seal colony. there wasnt many there as its breeding season and that isnt a breeding location. we then went to the pier pub for dinner and had some great food. we spending tonight just relaxing and not doing much. not much else to say. were spending two nights here in kaikoura before heading back to christchurch for two nights where we will meet up with our english relies. will update again soon!

luv kt