More New Zealand

I ended up staying in Napier an extra day, just because I couldn't make myself leave. Napier is paradise. I went to church there on Sunday morning. I was pretty sure there would be a ward in Napier, since there are church buildings all over New Zealand! Seriously, it's like being in Utah. The place is overrun with Mormons. Everyone in church was wonderfully nice and welcoming, of course. They all hugged me hello and told me I needed to move to New Zealand, which I would LOVE to do! There was only one pianist in the ward and she was in Primary, so I got to play the piano for Sunday School (they sang Sunday School hymns) and Relief Society, which was fun. I like to participate! All the people gave me the names and phone numbers of their children/cousins/in-laws who live in other parts of New Zealand and told me to look those people up and stay with them. I haven't done it yet, but I'm not ruling out the possibility.

It was also in Napier that I found out that Spokane is famous. Usually when I travel, I tell people I'm from Idaho because if I tell them I'm from Washington, they start talking about politics. But I forgot and told a guy in Napier that I was from Washington State and then clarified that I was from Spokane, Washington (hoping to head off any Obama talk). He said, "That's where all the buildings collapsed because of the snow last December, right? I saw it on the telly." Since then I've been telling other people I'm from Spokane, and they've all had the same reaction. We're famous for the snow. They all want to know if my house caved in. I should start telling them that it did.

So then I had to leave Napier, which was REALLY hard. I think that town is the most beautiful place I've ever been. Plus, the weather was nice and I wasn't sure if I'd be heading back into the cold, gray weather once I left the coast. And the hostel was great. I seriously considered bagging the rest of the trip and just staying in Napier an extra week, but I finally left, promising myself that I could come back if I wanted to.

I got on the bus for Wellington, fully expecting to go all the way to Wellington. A few hours into the bus ride, I was still fully expecting to go all the way to Wellington. But then the bus made a scheduled stop at a place called Paraparaumu, and for some reason I got off. I don't know why; I was bewildered about it at the time, and I still am. I never had any intention of stopping in that town. As my legs were carrying me off the bus, my brain was screaming, "What are you doing???" I watched the bus pull away, annoyed with myself for not being on it. I pulled out my hostel guide and saw that there was one small hostel in town, so I was REALLY hoping they weren't full, or else I was going to be mad.

I called the hostel and they had vacancies (whew!). And then everything started to go right. You know those times when suddenly the stars align and everything works out better than you ever imagined it could? First, there was the bus driver. I was supposed to catch a city bus to the hostel, so when the first city bus pulled up, I asked the driver if he went by that hostel. He initially told me he didn't go anywhere near there and told me which bus to catch, but then he changed his mind and said he could make a detour and go by the hostel. Since when do city bus drivers make detours to make things easier for passengers??? I got on, and he dropped me off right in front of the hostel, even pointing out where the office was (kind of hidden in the trees). I went inside the office, and a woman came bustling in, told me she'd take my money later, showed me a room so I could put my stuff down, and then told me to hurry downstairs because it was dinnertime. The room she showed me was a single room (as opposed to a room that you share with other people) and before I could say anything, she said, "Just put your stuff down. I'll charge you the same rate for this room that I would for a dorm room." A single room was listed as $47; a dorm was listed as $20. Wow!

So then I followed her downstairs, a little confused about this dinner she was talking about. Hostels have cavernous, fully-equipped kitchens where everyone can prepare their own food, but I'd never heard of people sitting down to eat together, unless they were traveling together. Once in a while we'd barter ("I'll trade you a glass of milk for a piece of toast") but that was the closest we ever got to a coordinated meal. So I was thinking this woman was telling me that I was interrupting HER dinner, and she wanted me to hurry so she could get back to eating. But no. When I got downstairs, everyone in the hostel was enjoying bowls of soup: hearty lamb & barley soup with vegetables. It was wonderful! I had never been fed in a hostel before. And the soup was just the beginning. Next came the main course: roasted pork, potatoes & gravy, greens with leeks, chips (fries), broccoli, etc. And then there was dessert: coffee cake, fruit cocktail, ice cream, and cheesecake. I found out later that the hostel provided the meat and everyone else prepared a side dish, but since I came late, I just mooched. I sat at a table with a guy from Canada, another guy from Australia, and a couple from Spain who were spending ten years biking around the world and writing about it for newspapers and websites. Great company, great food, a private room, all for $20 (or about $14 US dollars).

The next morning I woke up to what the locals called a "squall" and what I called a "hurricane." Just after I took this picture, the wind actually knocked me to the ground. I've never had that happen before! I had a reservation to take the ferry to the South Island early that afternoon, but the folks at the hostel were telling me the ferry probably wouldn't run because of the weather. They tried to talk me into staying, but I decided to go on to Wellington anyway, even with the bad weather, because I had to find out what to do about my ticket if the ferry didn't run. By the time I got to Wellington the weather was beautiful, with sunny skies and the regular amount of wind (which is still a lot of wind by my standards).

The ferry crossing was gorgeous, like everything else in this country. The boat was big and comfortable, but the sea was choppy so the crossing was a little bit rough. I liked it, but I know it made some people sick. We drifted in and out of large, green islands, sometimes through openings so narrow that it surprised me that we were taking that route.








Picton (where the ferry stopped, and where I stayed overnight) was beautifully rugged, built in a narrow area between the ocean and small mountains. The hostel was hillarious: it was right across the street from a graveyard, so they capitalized on that by calling it "Tombstone Backpackers" and painting everything black. The front door was a coffin, and the keychains had skulls on them. There was a hike in Picton that I wanted to do, but I got there too late. The sun had already gone down by the time I checked into the hostel. That's one good reason to go back to Picton! The town wasn't really large enough to stay for an extra day just to go on a two-hour hike, so in the morning I packed up and went to Kaikoura.

I'm going to have to start thinking of adjectives other than "beautiful" or "scenic" because I'm using those words too often when describing New Zealand. Kaikoura was stunningly gorgeous, how's that? Steep, dramatic snow-covered mountains loomed above the foothills, which in turn loomed above the beaches. This picture is the view from my hostel. I assume most of these places are packed in the summertime, but since it's winter and therefore "cold" (highs are in the 60s) there aren't many other tourists around, so I have places like Kaikoura all to myself. It's a small fishing town on a penninsula that used to be an island, but the waterway between the island and the mainland eventually got filled in with gravel which eroded off the mountains.

Kaikoura's bay is warm, because of something to do with ocean currents. (Somebody explained it to me, something about how the currents come from the south and then they come from the west...anyway, the bay stays warm.) And the warm water makes this a haven for all kinds of marine mammals: seals, dolphins, whales, etc. There was a great little walk all over the penninsula that had separate places for viewing dolphins, seals, and whales. I didn't see any dolphins, but I saw lots of seals (there are a couple of colonies, with signs saying not to get too close to the seals because they ARE wild animals) and some whales. This was supposed to be a picture of whales but it didn't quite work out, so it's just another scenic picture of the penninsula. There's a large seal colony in the middle of the picture, at the tip of that mini-penninsula. When I get a chance to post all my pictures on Snapfish, I'll have some seal pictures.