Ninjas, kayaks, and wine, oh my..

Hey all you party people. I'm in Christchurch now and it's been a busy last few days. Halloween in Nelson was a blast. A bunch of ninjas showed up and started karate chopping everyone. I somehow managed a semblance of a "fancy dress" using my bed sheet, a couple of loaner sarongs, and some leaves. HAIL CAESAR!!!! Unfortunately I failed to get a picture of myself in my gettup. We were out until late that night thanks to Rhonda, the lady that runs the Paradiso Hostel. She got taxis for anyone who wanted to go into town and party it up at the Grumpy Mole. Cool times. I left there about 2:30 and Rhonda was still there! I think she was up at 7 or something the next morning too. Crazy Kiwis.

City of Nelson

Kiwis are serious about their sheep

Knots galore for you boating fans (found this at the Maritime museum in Nelson)

Ninjas and their flaming swords

More ninjas!! and a pirate...aarrgghh!

Crazy backpackers and their mask and snorkel beer bongs

Carolyn showed up on Wednesday and we chilled out and picked up some food for our kayaking trip in the Abel Tasman area for the next three days. I've never really had any experience with kayaking so it was new to me, but it was great fun, and what a place to do it. The weather was pleasant and sunny and the scenery was killer. Tons on beautiful white sandy beaches, lots of cool weather worn rocks, and all sorts of wildlife. We only paddled for a couple of hours each day, but that was plenty for us. We'd start out in the morning, paddle for an hour or so, stop off for lunch, chill out in the sun for a while, hop back in the kayak and finish off to wherever we were camping. That happened to be Te Pukatea Bay the first night and Tonga Quarry the second night. We ended up at our camp site around 2 or 3 and then took at least a couple of hours to put up the tent. There was no reason to rush and it was hard not to find yourself falling asleep in the afternoon sun. My favorite part of the trip was our last day when we got up pretty early to take advantage of the high tide. There are a lot of little inlets that are only accessible during high tide and the one we checked out, Shag Harbor, was super cool. Really peaceful with clear water and nice little fresh water streams coming in at different places. It had all sorts of little branches that we could paddle up including some that went into caves. This little peaceful spot was a major contrast to the open water. We had a freindly little seal in the harbor that swam around us and seemed to sort of be playing with us, or at least that's what I like to think. At night the moon was mostly full and there were very few clouds in the sky resulting in a picturesque setting with the refelction of the moonlight off the water. I'm sure the sky would have been equally as amazing without the moon as there would have been a bajillion stars visible. Man, it was really hard to beat. Paddling around in a magnificent setting with the sunshine and the fresh air. Lounging around the beach doing nothing because you can. Life is tough :-)

Caroyln and I getting ready to launch

The introspective kayaker

The typical beach scene in the Abel Tasman area

Me and my vessel

Seals playing

Awesome little branch of Shag Harbor

Should we go in there????

Just another perfect evening in paradise

We got back to Nelson around 6 on Saturday did a load of laundry and headed out to a club to see a New Zealand reggae band called Katchafire. They were all right but it was sort of expensive for the quality. They were one of those bands who seemed to keep on talking about themselves and marketing themselves. Granted, some of that has to go on but it gets fairly annoying. Plus I was tired and we had to catch a bus at 8 the next morning to go to Renwick and some wine country.

Carolyn wanted to check out wines in this area so I was indoctrinated into the world of wine tasting. We visited 6 different places via bicycle and had pretty much the same types of wine at each place. The region is mostly known for it's white wines sauvignon Blanc most of all. Others included Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and riesling. Most also made a Pinot Noir and maybe a Merlot. It was nice....but I think I like beer better. I did buy one bottle that I liked, but it certainly didn't hurt that it was one of the cheaper bottles. I have come to the realization that I'm more fond of the dryer, less fruity wines and probably like the Pinot Noir the best. They had several varieties of riesling and I don't think I found one that I liked until the last winery, most were too fruity. I hope that actually had to do with my palate and not the number of tastes that I'd already had. Granted some of them were dessert wines so it was absolutely their intention to be fruity but I guess it's just too sweet for my taste. There was a winery called Hunter's and I learned that Hunter's were originally from Scotland but then moved to either Ireland or England. I tried to get a better deal with them because of my surname but they didn't buy it. Sorry I didn't get many pictures of the wine area.

My own personal winery!!

mmmmm...grape vines

Oh yeah, I have to put in a comment or two about the roads here. Ok, just one comment. Motorcycle heaven. On the bus from Nelson to Renwick I must have left a puddle of drool on the seat after seeing the wonderfully twisted roads. And all the corners looked like they were banked just perfectly. They do hire out motorcycles here, so I might indulge at some point and take a day to test out the pavement. mmmmm.....motorcycles.

After wine tasting in Renwick it was off to Christchurch aboard the TranzCoastal Train line. I haven't been on a train in ages and it was pretty cool and very relaxing. Most of the trip was along the coast which was very beautiful. We're going to take another train through the southern alps from Christchurch to Greymouth in a few days, the TranzAlpine, and I guess this one is really, really, cool. Up through the mountain passes through some of the most breathtaking region of the island. If I'm reading the weather report correctly we'll probably see some snow. I'm looking forward to it. But first we have a few days to explore Christchurch. Unfortunately it's raining here right now. You know, I think I actually though there was a strong possibility of going without rain for my whole trip. Oh well, I guess you can't win them all :-)

BTW, the internet connection here in Christchurch is nice and fast and relatively cheap so I added a few picture to my previous posts.

Peace