Day 10: Kaikoura

Sept 30th

Logan woke up at 5:30am SCREAMING bloody murder (worse than ever before - and yet I feel like I say that every time!). He was super hungry and then passed out. UGH.

We spent most of the day in Kaikoura - what a cute little beach town! I really liked it! We had breakfast at the Kaikoura Food Company (aka Fudge Factory) where Jon and Jill got the biggest honkin' plates of french toast you've ever seen. All in the name of carbing up. :) My food was simple yet also delicious - a bagel with cream cheese, pesto spread, gruyere and tomato = YUM. Eric, Jill and Jon couldn't resist the free fudge tastings (too sweet for my blood!) and we ended up buying a few boxes of fudge as gifts for some of our friends back home.

We walked around the town of Kaikoura, checking out gift shops (puau shell jewelry, wool clothes, etc.) and then headed out to a "seal colony" at the peninsula's point. We only saw one seal, but were captivated by the most beautiful views of the coast and snow capped mountains behind. We took a few group photos of all of us with Eric running back and forth from his tripod to us, across the slippery moss covered rocks in the freezing cold! :) I'm sure to the outsider's eye, we were quite the entertainment.

Logan has been doing much better during the day trips - he seems to like hanging out in the backpack carrier (an Aussie told Jon that it was a "BRILLIANT" idea and he wished they had those things when his kids were young) :) About the only real trouble (other than the middle of the night wake up calls) that he is having is some uncomfortable constipation, the poor kid. :(

Kaikoura is known for crayfish, its namesake (Maori for "to eat Crayfish"), so Eric decided that we needed to find the BEST crayfish in town to try before leaving. So, we walked and drove all over town looking for crayfish to try out. Unfortunately, with our luck, almost all places in town were closed, but we finally got a recommendation to try The Pier Hotel and Restaurant where Eric finally got his crayfish fix (similar to lobster, he said it was really tasty, but not sure it was worth the price - they are expensive!!) and they made me a really nice veggie dish as well.

Toward the end of the afternoon, we piled back into the car to get back on the road for Christchurch, our next destination. I was really disappointed I didn't get to go whale watching or dolphin swimming :( especially since Kaikoura is known for some spectacular experiences like that. But, no one in our group wanted to try it since they were all worried about getting seasick (we would have been in the open sea). Oh well. Next time? :)

We arrived into Christchurch in the evening - it is a very big city with a real English feel. Eric was craving steak (again) but I just wasn't in the mood to do another plain veggie option. In fact, I was actually craving Chinese takeout myself. So, we ended up "compromising?" with Italian instead (but no one got pasta!) :)

Logan started getting super cranky the minute we arrived at the restaurant. Jon didn't want one of us to miss yet another dinner walking him around outside the restaurant. So, we decided to order takeout instead. But, they took FOREVER and made us order larger sized orders of things for "takeaway" (we're still not exactly sure why that was) :( The food was okay - we all watched TV and hung out in the living room before bedtime (Jon had put Logan down earlier).

As we were cleaning up in the kitchen, Eric noticed a really strange sign posted above the sink. It said no fish or curries were allowed (to be cooked) in the unit, otherwise the hotel would charge a fine, since it's hard to get the smell out. Kind of a stuffy attitude, don't you think?

Yep, definitely felt like England. ;-)