Two winter days on the South Island

Prior to my British interlude, we traveled up and down the South Island during the school holidays, which are beautifully designed for travel. School here is divided into quarters rather than semesters; there are two weeks of holiday between each quarter, with six weeks in the summer (over the Christmas season). This seems eminently sensible to me and avoids the problem of summer regression.

Michelle tried something new on this journey and booked us into a backpacker’s hostel, which are absolutely everywhere on these islands.

It works particularly well for us as dorm rooms come with six beds, and it just so happens…

In the mornings the sun is weak and tepid, as one can see by this photo taken in the morning about 10AM.

Sunrise the day this photo was taken was 8:25 and sunset 5:20. You can imagine how we need to squeeze things into a 9 hours day. Summer travel was significantly different, with 15 hours (and exhausted children) to deal with.

This was our first journey up the coast since the winter snows.

That night we stayed in Kaikoura on the upper east coast. Sunrise the next morning was stunning

All four of the above pictures were taken within 90 minutes of each other. We then went whale watching. The view from the ticket office was rather pretty.The reason why whale watching is so good in Kaikoura (Kai = food & koura = crayfish in Maori) is that there is an offshore canyon three-quarters of a mile deep that comes within a mile of the coast. Whales dive for food practically within swimming distance of the shore.

If you drained all of the water out, it would looks something like this

We saw six sperm whales that day.The water was very calm, which was good, since the last time Michelle and I tried this, my morning coffee and muffin ended up in a bag.

Emily had a lovely time and here is Ben trying to explain something

We traveled up the coast through earthquake central.

This photo was taken in Marlborough, just outside of Seddon where an earthquake struck just two days later.

The day ended as beautifully as it began. After finding DOGFISH HEAD 90 MINUTE IPA in a grocery story in Blenheim !!!! (just down the road from the Mount Riley winery).

Sunset came upon us