Hey ! Wow, hard to keep updating my trip whilst travelling, but two days off in Queenstown (yeah, I'm back !), so some time to tell you about the last 10 days. Will write it in a couple of parts, beginning with Christchurch to Picton.

Left Christchurch on Friday togethet with Iben. Already met some other Stray passengers in the hostel. Thumper was our driver to Kaikoura and Picton. His parents have a rabbit shearing place, so that's why the name. It was just girls and one boy, Nick, so Thumper decided he had to pick flowers for us every day, and we had to hug him. Right.Later on Karlyn made it even worse for Nick, he decided that Nick (or Nichola ;-) had to be dressed by some girls every day, so he ended up in a different skirt or dress each travel day till Queenstown, haha.

We had the whole afternoon to spend in Kaikoura, the weather was great, so we rented some bikes to ride to the seal colony. Fush and chups and some crappy movies (Deep Blue Ocean) later that night, and left the next morning heading towards Picton.

Iben deciced not to go on the trip around the South Island, but take the ferry to Wellington instead to meet up with Noortje and Chaienne. Noortje (who we met in Auckland) has a foot injury and has to wait for the results from an ultrasound they made in the hospital in Wellington. I decided to stay on the South Island for my own mission.

The weather in Picton was not that good, but we had a whole afternoon off, so Mary and Siobhan, Grace (from Ireland), Nick and me rented the free fishing gear from The Villa (our hostel), and took off to the wharf. And we had big fun for a couple of hours trying to catch some fish and drink some beer. We caught....a nose (Mary's one), a seagull, but no fish, haha. We kinda wrecked the fishing rods, so ended up attaching all kinds of objects as weight, like rocks and empty bottles.

The Villa has a free Spa pool, so we hopped in afterwards, nice, only to get out for the free applecrumble and icecream they serve at night. Played junglespeed and packed our stuff for the next day. We could sleep in, pick up by Karlyn at 11.30.

Thumper already told the bus there was going to be a reunion (told him I had been in Karlyns bus a year ago), haha, so I was quit sure I was going to meet K again. Yup, Thumper begon ook al allerlei dubieuze vragen te stellen, hij zei achteraf dat ie van niks wist maar wel aanvoelde dat er "iets"was. Hij was erg nieuwsgierig wat er dan vorig jaar was gebeurd tussen ons. Nou, das simpel: helemaal niks, hahaha. Kinda funny, had some conversations with Thumper about relationships, busdrivers versus passengers, rugby, boxing an being a Stray driver. Easy guy to talk to.

Keep reading for part 2 !