A wee walk in Aotearoa

So, we've done quite a lot since my last post. We've left Christchurch and headed north. We stopped in Kaikoura for a couple days. Kaikoura is one of the most green cities in the world. Look it up some time, it's pretty amazing. In Kaikoura, we first went on a Maori tour, which showed us lots of old maori places. We then took a boat out to see the dusky dolphins. There had to be hundreds of them! Then we went on a long hike along the cliffs on the coast to see a colony of seals. They were so close! The hike was amazing, we were hiking on rocky shores and up steep trails. We ended the hike going straight up a 70 degree muddy hillside, which some people slipped on. We also ate some lamb.

Since then we've travelled to Nelson, which is one of the sunniest cities in the country. On the way to Nelson we travelled along Highway 1, which hugs the coastline and cuts through some vineyards. We stopped to hike up a trail, which led us to a waterfall and pool filled with baby seals. There were so many of them playing in the water, one of them even came up to smell me. Once we arrived in Nelson, we went to a nature reserve and went for a "wee walk" which turned out to be a pretty intense hike because recent rains had washed out some of the trails. My muscles still hurt. We did some volunteer work there, clearing out the non-native plant species. We then ate dinner in town. Today we're travelling to Motueka, where tomorrow we will kayak in the Abel Tasman park.