Welcome to Kiwiland!!!

SOOO sorry to all the blog followers!! We've been caught in the whirwind that is New Zealand!! Promise we'll try and keep you up to date with everything, but we're just so busy trying to fit everything in we can!!
We got into Christchurch on Nov.5th and stayed the night with Angela, a girl we'd met on our Cape Tribulation tour in Oz. We left early the next monrning on our 1st day on the the Kiwi Experience bus north to Kaikoura. It was our first taste of New Zealand weater and it is COLD!!! So much for 3 and a half months of tan!! :( There wasn't much to do there and the whale watching trips were expensive!! The next day we were onto Nelson after dropping some people off at the ferry to go north. For such a small country, we're spending surprisingly more time on the bus than we thought we would. We make a lot of stops for scenic walks and pretty landscapes! We were really excited for Nelson because it's close to Abel Tasman National Park and it was the first place we'd be staying for more than 1 night! We got tyo stay in an old hostel that they'd turned into a hostel, so it was super clean and REALLY nice.
We booked a 2 day camping trip that had one day of hiking and one day of kayaking in Abel Tasman. There were 8 of us, 2 couples, 2 french guys and Lauren and I. We hiked about 10km the first day before we got to the campsite for the night. Luckily we didn't have to carry all our gear (no repeat west coast trail!) because they dropped it at the beach we were staying at and it was waiting for us when we got there. The campsite was great and we had a huge bonfire that night with the 8 of us from our tour and some other campers. We're quite used to sleeping in close quarters, but LT STILL managed to freeze despite the snuggling! :( Next morning our guide met us at the beach with our kayaks.

The weather was beautiful! We had a full day of kayaing and being the only female pair and working on no sleep we'd say we did pretty well!! We made a few stops on some beaches and even did some "sailing" :) (see pic).
After a good night's sleep in our fave hostel, we headed south down the coast to Westport for one night. The only thing worth mentioning about Westport was the HUGE bonfire we had on the beach. We added a picture of us that we took there before sunset just to show you how pretty we still are :)

ANYWAY....after leaving Westport, we had a full day on the bus, but stopped for a couple of walks on the way. The first was at Cape Foulwind, which was BEAUTIFUL and looked like something we thought you might see in Scotland or Ireland. The second was at the "pancake rocks"....pretty self-explanatory(see pic) .

On the Kiwi bus, one of the exclusive overnight stops is at the "Poo Pub"...an old old hotel at Lake Mahinapua. Every bus that goes through has a theme/costume party. Our bus voted on a Christmas theme (we were all for a helmet party but got outvoted:) With a $10 max budget, LT went as a Jack in the box and LH went as a gingerbread man. We TOTALLY had the best costumes, but didn't win any of the prizes, like a canyon swing or bungee jump..I guess LT might actually have to PAY if she decides to do one!
By this time tomorrow we'll have DONE our full day Glacier hike on Franz Josef Glacier!! Lots of action packed, fun-filled days coming up...Milford Sound, glacier walks, maybe a bungee jump...we'll try to fit a blog in there somehwere!!

Lots of love,
L and L