I was traveling with Patrick from Switzerland and Kurt from Norway. Once we arrived we had a brief wait for a shuttle to pick us up and bring us to the car rental. The rental company is named Jucy and our car was the El Cheapo, haha.
After getting the car we decided to take a look at Christchurch. Even two years after the large earthquake in Christchurch the city was still struggling. It was a sorrowful and vacant city.
You could see that it was beginning to rebuild and recover. There was a very cool shopping Center made from freights cars.
There part of the city that was being rebuilt had an artistic feel and was also very cute, hopefully it won't be too much longer until the city regains some of it's life and excitement.
After this we went for a bit of a drive, but the rode we planned to travel was closed so we ended up returning to Christchurch and then drive across the island over towards Punakaiki where there are Pancake Rocks.
The ride was long after an early morning flight, but beautiful! I also did my first driving in New Zealand, it was actually much easier than I anticipated driving on the left. The roads in New Zealand also have a lot of twists and turns making it more interesting.
After we arrived I felt it was definitely worth driving a bit further to see these rocks. The coastal drive there was also beautiful, and it reminded me of the California coast.
That night we ended up staying at a lovely place right on the beach. We had a refreshing swim in the ocean, watched the sunset, and had a nice dinner.
This was the view right from our room!
The next day we returned to the Pancake Rocks for another quick stop, then proceeded down the west coast of the island. We saw both the Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers. They were very impressive and still beautiful even though we had dreary, foggy weather.
The prettiest algae I've seen.
And yes the car was moving…. traveling with guys….
After the glaciers we decided to continue on down to Wanaka where we stayed the night. I was pleasantly surprised to find this view from the kitchen as we went to eat breakfast the following day.
We took a pleasant walk up Mount Iron in beautiful sunshine and had a lovely view of the lake and mountains. Then decided to continue on to Queenstown, the adventure capital of NZ. Where you can do everything from bungee jumping to canyoning. We explored the pretty city right on the lake.
Funniest boat, it's like a water-bicycle!
Forgetting that we were traveling on Easter weekend we didn't book a hostel in advance, so after many calls to fully booked hostels we finally found a place just a bit outside the city.
We went out for the evening in Queenstown, but did not stay out too late because everything was closed by 12pm for Easter.
The following day I booked my own rental car for the rest of my trip and found a hostel to stay in at Queenstown. Once I finished we rode up the gondola to see the beautiful view of the city. We also rode on the Luge that comes down the mountain, it was more fun than I expected.
Hmmm maybe this will be as close to seeing the kiwi as I'll get, but it doesn't seem the same to pay to go see the kiwi bird.
After this Kurt and Patrick started to travel back North towards Mount Cook since they would be flying out of Christchurch. And I began my first independent travels!
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