Zelma’s Trip

I woke up in my van after a surprisingly good night’s sleep and was pleased to see that it was beautiful sunshine.  I set off down the road and before long I realised why so many people rave about the South island of New Zealand.  I drove round a corner and glanced to my right to see the most amazing snow-capped mountains in the distance and before long I was on the coastal road, heading down the East side of the island.  It was truly out of this World being able to see the aqua-marine sea to one side of me and the snowy mountains in the distance on the other.  Although I am not wanting to feed into the thought that I am becoming a soppy cow in my old age, I did actually have a tear in my eye on more than one occasion.

When I got to Kaikoura I saw a sign saying there was a seal colony.  I glanced seawards in the vain hope that I would actually spot one and then, to my amazement and delight, realised that, what I thought was a lot of funny shaped rocks, was actually loads of seals.  I stopped my van, albeit rather abruptly, and looked down to the plethora of seals sunning themselves on the beach below.  They were really close, some of them only around two metres away.  For a little while I wondered if there had been some horrible marine disaster as they weren’t moving at all and then a helpful trucker went passed and beeped at me (yes some ‘traditions’ really are global) and all the seals turned in unison and stared at me.  After recovering from the excitement of seeing the seals I headed further South down the coast road where I was treated with sightings of penguins and various other amazing birds along the way.  It really was one of the most amazing drives I’ve done in my life.

When I arrived in Christchurch I managed to practically drive passed the depot where I had to drop the van off before driving round the town and then heading back there.  In the evening I headed into town to the "fuzzy duck", actually that’s not right, that was a Uni drinking game, erm it was the something duck anyway or the duck something or….anyway I guess this isn’t all that relevant.  It was next to the Arts’ centre and was a really nice place if anyone happens to visit and wants to go somewhere that sounds like a duck, not literally.  After the nameless pub we headed to a few other establishments in the city and I got a cab back to the hostel I was staying in.