Hey everyone!
Well, since school is officially out, we are on holiday! We have been having an awesome week relaxing and going on longer trips that we wouldn't have been able to during the school week!
We went to a place called Curio Bay down in the Catlins, which is in the Southernmost part of the South Island. There is a little island called Stewart Island below us, but after that, the next piece of land is Antarctica! How cool!? The main reason we went there is because we heard it is the top place to see dolphins and penguins!! Ahh! We've been wanting to see them the whole time we've been in New Zealand and we actually got to!
Of course, the drive is never a disappointment, so here are some pictures of the views on the way down to Curio Bay!
Our hostel was right on the beach which was incredible! Of course, the first thing we did was walk down to the beach to see if we could spot any dolphins. We saw a few, but really wanted to get more up close and personal with them so we decided to see if there was anywhere to rent wet suits to go into the water. (It was very very cold water!)
Apparently, it's illegal to rent our wetsuits to just swim but we were in luck! The guy renting the wetsuits was giving a surf lesson in an hour and a half and had room for us! We've all wanted to learn to surf before and we definitely all wanted to see the dolphins closer so we took surf lessons! I actually did it! I didn't think I'd be able to, but I did! I stood up on the surf board quite a bit actually and it was so awesome. I might just become a surfer chick now and be a beach bum:) There was a girl getting her pictures taken on the surf board and the photographer was nice enough to email me the photos! There are none of me actually standing up on the board (I obviously wasn't priority #1) but there are still some awesome pictures, and I promise I was able to stand up on the board! These next pictures are courtesy of Ethos, NZ photographer, Robyn.
That night, we went to the petrified forest at low tide and saw some penguins and a LOT of huge kelp!
We also went to Christchurch, which was an area really impacted by earthquakes a couple years ago. There is still so much damage there, it's really heartbreaking to see, but also inspiring because of how well the city is moving along!
This sculpture was sent from the U.S. and it's some of the steel from the World Trade Center. Pretty awesome to see.
The night life there is great as well! We had a really fun night out!
We stayed in a hostel called "The jailhouse" so named because it actually is in an old jailhouse! The rooms were all the old cells, it was really cool. They had an area where you could take your "mug shot."
Next, we're off to Queenstown and then Sydney, Australia!
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