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The past few days have been spent travelling down from Auckland to the South Island. Our first stop was Napier, a coastal city famous for its wineries and orchards. We stayed with Tony and Sarah on their farm, who welcomed us into their home even though we had never met them before. Both nights we stayed there we enjoyed delicious home cooked meals and even tried new foods like a special kind of artichoke, a small fruit like baby non hairy kiwis and a NZ favourite, hokey pokey ice cream! It was so nice to eat lots of fresh fruit and veg as we were deprived of them in South America! The first morning was an early start as we joined Tony and Sarah for the weekly meet with their cycling/tramping group. We thought that 20 people over 3 times our age couldn't possible cycle too far, but 70km later we were very sore and had to admit we had underestimated our hosts! We had a lovely ride though and it was a great way to see the area. We cycled through orchards and also along the sea front, plus the great news is most of Napier is completely flat so there were no nasty hills like Chepstow! We were glad to return back to the farm after our long but fun day to rest and to enjoy another delicious home cooked meal! The following day we joined Tony and Sarah to deliver meals on wheels to the community. Our first stop was a lovely Welsh lady. It made her day that two girls from Wales had gone to see her! We had a quick lunch in town before boarding a bus to Wellington. Once again we had to say goodbye, and we were very grateful to Tony and Sarah for letting two strangers stay with them in their home! When we arrived in Wellington, our hostel was conveniently located right next to the bus stop (though it took us a while to realise!) and we went out to explore. We found Wellington a lovely city but there was no one there! We were expecting the hustle and bustle you usually get in a capital city, but Wellington seemed like a ghost town! We enjoyed walking around though. Wellington has some amazing looking bars and restaurants which we read the menus for then continued on to Subway for a budget tea! The view over the sea is also beautiful and we enjoyed a hot chocolate before heading back to our hostel. We were only using Wellington as a stopover before our flight from Wellington to Christchurch but we wished we could have had longer there, though not sure our budgets would have thanked us! The next morning was our flight so we got up very early, hopped on our flight, and it seemed like 10 minutes later when the cabin crew were preparing for landing! Our hostel was about a 30 minute walk out of town so we dropped our bags off there before walking into the city. Christchurch is far from recovering from the major earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The whole centre of the city is completely closed off to the public, and everywhere you look you can still see damaged buildings and workmen repairing or rebuilding. We struggled to fill our time there, although parts of the city were beautiful. There are gorgeous botanical gardens and a huge park, we had a cheap lunch in another Irish pub and looked round a temporary shopping centre made from shipping containers while the main shopping area is being rebuilt. Today was another early start as we caught an all day bus from Christchurch to Queenstown. On the way there was some stunning scenery, especially Lake Tekapo which we're hoping to come back and visit after Queenstown. The next few days are scheduled to be adrenaline filled, can't wait!!
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