Caboose

From Kaikoura the bus took us to Picton, where the Inter-Islander ferry leaves for Wellington. As we got on I could see that the Kaitaki had once been the Pride of Cherbourg, I’m pretty sure I’ve travelled either on that ship or one just like it before. The journey wasn’t very exciting and after about three hours we arrived in Wellington and took the free shuttle bus to the railway station.

I checked into Nomads Capital backpackers, which claims to be a “flashpacker”, i.e. a bit more upmarket. They squeeze four pairs of bunk beds into a fairly small room and the top bunks are ridiculously high and wobbly. I had to wedge my duvet down the side of the bed so it didn’t bang off the wall every time I moved.

On my first evening I took the Wellington cable car up to the Botanic Gardens. It’s quite a nice view from up there, although it was a bit windy. I went up again the next day to visit the cable car museum, while I was there it started raining heavily, spoiling my plan of walking down into town.

Instead I passed a couple of hours visiting New Zealand’s parliament. There was an interesting tour of the Executive Wing (better known as the beehive), the parliament building and the library. Afterwards I went into the public gallery to see the end of question time and the start of the third reading of the controversial Electoral Finance bill. It was surprisingly exciting watching as speeches were made, opposition MPs booed and jeered and a couple were asked to leave by the speaker.

Woke up feeling a bit grotty due to the previous nights beers, had breakfast and got on the bus. Today we were going back to Christchurch, some people were finishing their trip here (just doing the South Island loop). I’d already done enough sightseeing in Christchurch so I spent the afternoon doing my laundry, reading and watching films.

The next day the bus up a load of new people and myself and we set off for Kaikoura, known for its whale-watching activities. After weeks of sticking closely to my very tight budget I decided to treat myself to a whale-watching trip. Whale Watch Kaikoura, a company owned by the indigenous Kati Kuri people of Kaikoura, runs the trips out of the former railway station. After boarding the shiny new catamaran we sped out to sea for a bit, then spent a while stopped with the captain listening for whales using a hydrophone.

This was repeated a few times before one of the local whales finally surfaced and spent a while resting on the surface before his next dive. Most people rushed up onto the top deck to take pictures, even more so when he decided to dive again. After this we started trying to find another whale and had an exciting high-speed trip bouncing across the waves when the captain got a tip-off over the radio. Again, we were all out on deck snapping away.

We left Dunedin on a cold and miserable day, with our first stop being the Moeraki boulders. They’re big round boulders that have dropped out of a soft cliff onto the beach. They’re really not worth getting out of the bus for on a cold, rainy and windy day.

After passing lots of hydro-electric dams and various canals bringing water to the dams we eventually reached Lake Tekapo. It features exciting attractions such as a monument to sheepdogs, the church of the Good Shepherd and an observatory (not much use given all the clouds). Our driver organised a barbecue — so we sat outside, ate and had a few beers.