New Plymouth

So Friday evening I booked a bus ticket to head down to New Plymouth for the weekend! It was a bit of a whirlwind visit but I'm so glad I went, as despite the fact I had a test on Wednesday and a 3,000 word essay due Thursday the weekend away was the perfect get-away!

New Plymouth was beautiful, so once I got of the bus (it was a 4hour journey) I took a quick stroll along the eastern section of the Coastal Walkway to find a hostel - you couldn't book a hostel room online with less than 48hours notice so I just had to wing it and hope there would be room!

I visited St Mary's Church which is the oldest stone church in New Zealand! Visiting the 'old' building in New Zealand always reminds me just how young the country actually is!

There were also a couple of lovely little walks through woodlands, the one which ran alongside the stream for a couple of miles was one of my favourites

Although this was a little bit of a weird sign to stumble across on my walk!

I made sure to fit in the Coastal Walkway while in New Plymouth as it's a beautiful path that's been built to run right alongside the coast for 13ishkm (8miles) 

There's the Wind Wand, which is a pretty famous landmark for New Plymouth on the Coastal Walkway

The coastline was beautiful, with a great mix of expansive sandy beaches, and rough vibrant yellow cliffs. It was also the perfect time to take a walk as I set off as the sun was getting low in the sky, so by the time I was returning to town the sun was setting and I got amazing views

This was one of my favourite beaches - can you see how the clouds are reflected in the wet sand!!

Towards the end of the walk my shoes were hurting so I did the only possible thing I could, and took my shoes off to go paddling in the water!

I found a huge driftwood tree that served as the perfect bench and sat down to read while the sun set - incredibly tranquil and utterly perfect

This is looking back at New Plymouth, you can just see the two nature reserved islands out to see

The sunsets in New Plymouth were some of the best I've seen as it just went on for ages!

Leaving you with one of my favourite pictures from New Plymouth!

Day 48 Delayed bus to Picton

I departed the Dusky Lodge bright and early to make it to the bus stop the recommended ten minutes prior to the bus’ scheduled arrival. I’m really not sure why I bother keeping to times and being early in New Zealand, everyone else is just too relaxed to worry about getting places on time, so everything is always late...

My last sunset in kaikoura!

The bus arrived only 20 minutes late, which is fairly good for New Zealand, but the Bus Driver then decided he needed his half an hour break so myself and the others at the bus stop were left to wait for a further 30 minutes. Meaning by the time we got the bus we had been waiting for an hour. In the rain.

The journey wasn’t ‘too’ bad, there were quite a few twisty roads, and someone was sick at the back, (not me this time! Hurray!) but I held it together – which was a blessed relief after yesterday’s fiasco of retching for 2hours on a boat…

I haven’t got a great deal to add honestly, I found my hostel, checked in, met some lovely people, had some free chocolate pudding, booked my hostel in Wellington, went in the hot tub with Natalie, and then collapsed on my bed. I'm all packed and ready to go tomorrow morning when I catch the ferry!

 Such a beautiful stretch of coastline

Day 9 Cowshed Bay

Last night was possibly one of the worst of my life.

After George lost his PJs (again), we lost the car key (again), and general moaning about the ridiculously loud party going on in the cabin next to us, we settled into our tent. But just as we were starting to drift off we started to realize it was getting cold. Not just your normal the-suns-gone-so-its-chilly cold, but several-degrees-below-freezing cold. And we were hopelessly unprepared (having never got around to buying sleeping bags).

We ended up doing all sorts of crazy improvisation, including George putting his legs through a hoodie (make-do pajama pants) and cocooning ourselves in any clothes we could get our hand on. It was a long, cold and sleepless night.

And, just to make my first camping experience even better, when we finally drifted off to sleep at 7 the tent started to get very, very hot. So hot in fact that by 9 neither of us could stand it any more and simply had to get up as we were sweltering. Oh and I feel the showers also deserve a brief mention, as they undoubtedly added to the ‘camping fun’. They operate on a dollar per minute basis, and I had a grand total of $4. This combined with the fact my normal shower is about half an hour, and the fact I swear the clock ticked down too fast, meant it all in all, wasn’t the best start to my day

Aside from the rocky start today has actually been pretty lovely. We set out nice and early, not through choice but still, and headed further up Kenepuru Road, we stopped off briefly at Cowshed bay (not the nicest name sadly), Picnic Bay, Sandy Beach and eventually we got all the way to the top at Kenepuru Head. All the bays were idyllic with crystal clear turquoise waters and a laid back atmosphere..

The crazy amount of leaflets and brochures I've managed to collect in my backpack!

 Picnic Bay

 George's amazing photography skills :p (i've no idea what I'm doing here)

 Picnic Bay was deserted apart from one couple fishing around the corner but it felt like we had it to ourselves!

 Just admiring the view! The photos's really don't even do it justice

The scenery here is simply stunning. The roads, not so much. Not only are there unfinished roads, which is fine, but every so often you stumble across a lovely section where half the road has crumbled down the cliff and a two-lane road is reduced to one. Which when paired with terrifying turns means you have to get across these sections before a car comes around the turn as there won’t be time for either of you to do anything. Needless to say we spent a good portion of the drive mildly terrified for our lives. On the plus the rest of the drive was spent admiring the beautiful countryside.

Cowshed Bay 

The obligatory silly pose

 The cute little duckling that kept following us around with it's mum

 another shell picture :)

Our view for lunch!

Me, looking a little pink (the sunburn has already faded) at sunset

 The bay took my breath away as dusk

We opted to spend the night at Cowshed Bay as the view is stunning, there’s newly refitted toilets and it’s in a good location for heading to Pelorus Sound tomorrow. After pitching our tent (I helped this time) I spent the afternoon writing, sketching, reading, sunbathing, swimming and paddling in the water. Pretty much the perfect afternoon (Well almost, it’s so hot that our cooler bag pretty much just gave up so dinner was an adventure)

Wish me luck for tonight’s second attempt at camping.

P.S Just went out to take some photos of the bay at dusk (one of the most beautiful times of day) and guess what we saw?! A SEAL! Lounging on the rocks it blended in almost seamlessly! Definitely the highlight of the day!

Our very first glimpse of the seal - I was surprised at how well it blended in, we'd have completely missed him if he hadn't moved and the German couple hadn't waved us over 

The Seal! He was so laid back he let us get pretty close (although obviously we didn't get too close as we didn't want to disturb him)

and we managed to get a sneaky picture with the seal!