Kiwi road trips...

As you may have noticed, I've added some photos to the older posts (which will look familiar to those of you on Facebook since I haven't got any new ones since I last added to my albums).  I tried to get some more recent ones from my mom's camera, but unfortunately the computer at our hostel doesn't seem to like her memory card and she forgot to bring the usb cord for her camera....I will do my best to get some up before she leaves on Saturday though....

Anyway here's the latest update on what I've been up to: we rented a car in Christchurch on Monday morning and headed north.  To say that our little Toyota Starlet is a budget car is a bit of an understatement....it's got over 200 000km on the odometer, the hatchback rattles when we hit 80km/hr, mom says it's kind of gutless between 60-79km/hr and I'm convinced it kind of smells like diapers (clean ones thankfully!).  It's definitely no Wombat, but it's doing it's job so I shouldn't complain.

We drove up to Oxford (about an hour's drive from Christchurch) to visit the YWAM base so that mom could see it.  I met some of the people I'll be living with and learning from over the next 6 months and am really looking forward to going back next week.  The base is small, but cosy and definitely feels like a good fit for me.  I think there might be photos on their website?

After our stop at the base we drove another hour and a half into the mountains a bit to Hanmer Springs which is a hotsprings area.  We did a little hiking and then relaxed at the resort until it started to rain....had a really nice hostel with a wood fire place and slept well after our fresh air and relaxation.

Tuesday we drove 4hours across the island and north to Nelson.  The peaks we saw along the way were spectacular, but the rain that poured down as we arrived in Nelson was not so spectacular.  It's a coastal city which kind of reminded me of Prince Rupert (although that could have been due to the fact that it was raining there when I visited as well...at least this time I remembered my raincoat!).

Wednesday (today) the rain held off until late afternoon and we drove to Golden Bay and did a few different hikes in the rainforest which was fun.  Hopefully it will be nice enough tomorrow for a boat ride along the Abel Tasman National Park coastline.