Punakaiki - pancakes and Kettle Pot

Leaving Kaikoura, we then had the longest drive of the trip over to the West Coast and Punakaiki. Westayed in a beautiful B & B, set in the middle of the rainforest. Unfortunately the rainforest was doing what it does best - raining! As we arrived late, we just headed over to the local tavern for some fish and chips - beautiful.

The next day we went down to the Pancake Rocks - these are a particular formation of rocks eroded by the sea and wind so they have become almost "layered". There is also an interesting set of "blowholes", where the sea water is pushed through the rocks releasing what looks like steam but is in reality, very fine spray. The most impressive one was Kettle Pot.

Kaikoura

We arrived into a sunny and hot Kaikoura - home to the crayfish...the viewws were spectacular. Our room had one of the best panorama's I think I've ever seen!

We had two days here, so the first day we decided to take the Whale Watching boat. Kaikoura is renown for its whales - they have a particular feature of the sea bed just off the coast whicn means the whales come into the shore regularly and therefore is pretty perfect for whale watching. Unfortunatel, the weather was pretty choppy and so we didn't see any whales on the boat, so we decided to take the Whale Watch helicopter the following day! This was fantastic - one of the best things I've ever done. We did see a whale and they are absolutely majestic and huge! You can't get the scale from these pictures but trust me, it was big!



There are some strange sights around in this town - it seems to attract the surfer/student crowd. These vans are everywhere - very basic, but very cool. You also couldn't help but notice how fresh everything is - the veg being no exception.

Nelson to Kaikoura

The day started off rather wet - thre are no traffic controls on roadworks in NZ, they are all manually controlled. This means that for this guy, he was having a miserable day!


We had a fantastic drive down with the scenery changing signigifcantly as we headed down to Kaikoura. We popped into Scott vineyard for a cheeky bottle or two as well...

Nelson

First port of call our South Island adventure was Nelson. Very nice place and the weather was great...for the first day...then it poured down...


We stayed in Te Puna Wai Lodge - quite possibly the nicest B & B I've ever been in...the attention to detail was unbelievable and we seriously had the best view in the house!

For the second day we toured round some vineyards and then headed to Split Apple Rock via kayak...can you guess why its called Split Apple Rock?

South Island

After leaving the beautiful North Island, we headed by Air NZ to the South Island. You've got to love Air NZ - so helpful - BA could learn a lot from these guys...

The views from the air were amazing. The plan was to start in Nelson and then gradually head down the South Island criss-crossing the country East to West and North to South.

North Shores

We then moved up to Whangaparoa to spend some time just lazing aorund. We were sharing a house with both sets of parents - interesting but worked out well. The house had the most amazing views over the bay...

Good times...

Auckland

So, after the wedding we headed back to DeBretts for a couple of nights in Auckland. Was good to be back, but we didn't have the Suite this time which was a shame...

The Wedding!

The day started off pretty wet and miserable and we just thought we were going to have to make the most of it. Towards lunchtime though, it started to clear up and by the time of the ceremony, the weather was beautiful! We had the most amazing day - the scenery was unbelieveable. Castaways were so helpful and our photographer - Chris Dillon - did an amazing job of capturing the day...

Special thanks to our MC and DJ too - David Seel, he really pulled the day together and it would have been very different without him.

Castaways

So, we finally arrived at the wedding venue - Castaways in Waiuku. One can only descrive the setting as breathtaking - individual studios and villas built into the hill side with a very dramatic black sand beach and amazing shoreline - the scene is set for a wonderful day tomorrow!