December 4 - New Zealand: Kaikoura to Picton (South Island)

Helicopter Whale-Watching Anyone? 

Yesterday, disappointed with our second thwarted attempt at whale watching, we scheduled a helicopter whale watch trip.  We thought this was kind of cool: we would see whales from the air instead of the sea.  It was fool-proof, right?  They didn't have any spaces left yesterday afternoon, so we set up a time for 10:00AM this morning.  

We woke up, Jon went for a run, we disassembled the tent and had breakfast.  Then we went to the heli-pad for our 9:45 check in time.  The pilot was in the office and said - because of the cloudy, foggy weather - they weren't sending a trip out just yet.  He was really quite nice and suggested that we call back in an hour or so because he thought the weather was clearing up.

We logged onto the Internet until 10:45, when Jon called the office to see about the flight.  They scheduled us for 1:00 instead and we went back to catch up on our emails.  The campsite was nice enough to let us stay until then (checkout was at 10:00AM) since they were the ones who scheduled the flight for us.  So we had lunch at a picnic table and waited until 12:45.  Then we rang up the helicopter place again and found out that it just wasn't going to happen today.  It was too cloudy for any flight to be worthwhile.

So Calm, but too Cloudy!

The place we were going to use was the Kaikoura Helicopters World of the Whales (www.worldofwhales.co.nz).  I haven't been to the website, but maybe there are some pictures there that might show what we would have seen if we'd been able to go.

So we're batting .500 right now with our outdoor activities so far.  We successfully scuba dived, abseiled, and glacier-climbed.  But no luck on the skydiving, boat whale-watching, or helicopter whale-watching.

Wine Tasting

We drove to Picton because we're scheduled for a ferry ride tomorrow.  So we made our way up the east coast to Picton.  We stopped at two wineries along the way.  Here are the details:

The Villa Maria Winery

Cheese Tasting

Throughout our drive through New Zealand, we've passed a few cheese factories that offered cheese tastings.  We'd managed to resist the urges to stop at them, despite Jon's constant teasing.  See, when I was in college, my best friends had a nickname for me because I ate so much cheese.  They said that I might even sell my body for cheese, and thus the derivation of my nickname: "Cheese Whore".  Not exactly an endearing name, but my best friends aren't usually inclined to be mushy or sentimental so it's definitely fitting.  At any rate, Jon decided we were going to make a side-stop today to satisfy my "Cheese Whore" tendencies.

We stopped at the Kiakomo (or something like that) Cheese Factory and Jon talked me into stopping.  We tried all of the cheeses on offer (about 8 or so) and decided we liked the mild cheddar the best.  But we didn't buy any because the cooler is full up and we're trying to get rid of food - not buy more!  So we hopped back into the car and proceeded to Picton.  My Red House roommates would be so proud:  the Cheese Whore lives!

Picton

We arrived in Picton around 4:00PM and checked into the Blue Anchor Top 10 Campsite (www.blueanchor.co.nz).  Then we went to the supermarket to replenish our dwindling veggie supplies.  (Veggies, by the way, are called "Veges" here in New Zealand.)  After shopping, we stopped by a backpacker's hostel called "The Villa" to find Kath.  She'd been here for 2 days and went kayaking in the Sound today.  I talked her into making pasta with us back at the campsite, and we cleared a space for her in the back of our very cluttered car.

Dinner was pretty delicious, even though it was the same thing we've been eating for the past two weeks.  And it was nice to have dinner with someone who added to the conversation.  Not that Jon and I are running out of things to talk about, but it's nice to have some variety.

After dinner, I drove Kath back to The Villa and went back to shower and get ready for bed.  Jon spent some quality time updating his running journals, so read on for more info.

Jon finally logs his runs in NZ! (written on 4 Dec.) - Run #23

It's taken me a little while but I've finally gotten caught up on my running journals.  For this morning's run I got up at 7am to get the run in before the helicopter ride.  Having driven through town a few times I knew I didn't want to go towards town for my run - too many very steep hills and no good views to make it worthwhile, so I headed for the same direction as Sunday's long run.  It was a bit foggy and cool but I still would rather run in this weather than the muggy weather of Singapore.  Allen told us that when he runs in Singapore he either goes late at night or early in the morning--that's got to be the only way to do it!