Nate's Adventures: The South Island

Today, we got on the inter-islander ferry. It went from the North Island city called Wellington to the South Island city called Picton.

We spent a couple nights in a near by town near Picton. We didn’t do much there but some schoolwork and just hangout.

Our next stop, Kaikoura. Kaikoura, is a coastal city on the South Island and home to the New Zealand fur seals. It has a lot of fur seals!!! The word Kaikoura means eat crayfish. Yes, it really means eat crayfish. Lol!

We decided to go and explore the area. We went on a walk and something happened! A fur seal hopped up on the boardwalk (for people) and flops around until it had to stop because it saw another fur seal. The fur seal decided to get off the boardwalk and flop around to avoid the other seal. The flop was so funny.

Then, we went on a longer walk to see the seal colonies and it stunk so bad. It was a long hike but I enjoyed it.

We also went sea kayaking. Dad & I were in one kayak and Sammy & Mom were in the other. We saw more seals and 2 penguins. It was fun.

Next, we went to Christchurch. It is famous for a church. The city was named after but we couldn't go to the church because 2 earthquakes happened in the past. One was strong and the other was weaker but was more destructive than the other. First, we went to quake city where we learned about the 2 earthquakes, Next we went Canterbury museum it had exhibits for arctic exportation, the Maori aka the first people of New Zealand ,Dinosaurs and the powa shell house. Then, we went to a huge park with a 25 feet slide, a zip-line, a steep slide, 2 slides that go under the hill, swings, a water maker area and trampolines. it was so much fun!

Then, we went to sheer-vue another sheep farm the first one had 3 sheep but this one has 3050 sheep and 5 alpacas. We also had a tour there we saw the pig named Molly, the pet sheep , the dogs herd some sheep and I chopped some sweet beets and fed them to the sheep an alpacas. Also, we had a hot tub so we went in it.

After that, we went to Queenstown it’s a small ski town like Whistler CA. We went on a helicopter. We flew on to a snow caped mountain and I slipped in to the snow. Also we had a birds eye view of Queenstown and an amazing lake.It was cool. Also it was all our first times on a helicopter ride besides dad.

We went on the hydro shark a under water vehicle shaped like a shark it can jump 18 feet high and can dive 5 feet deep and can go 80 km/hr or if you a American 49.7 mph. It was so much fun we jumped up to 17-18 feet and we went 80 km/hr and dove 4.9 feet deep or 1.5m deep.

Then, we went to Franz Josef. We went to the national wildlife centre we saw kiwi birds not to confuse you with the fruit also called a kiwi.

We found out that the kiwi has 4 main predators 1. Cats 2.Dogs 3. Possums 4. Stoats all kill kiwis and all of them are invasive species. Invasive species are animals or plants that are introduced to the country by people to solve a problem lets say that Britain brings cats into New Zealand to get rid of mice but they kill the mice ,The birds and everything else on New Zealand. We also went on a walk and we also saw some funny signs.

Next, we drove to Punakaiki. It was a town we decided to stop at because it was pretty. It’s famous for the Pancake rocks. We went and saw the Pancakes rocks and Blowholes. It’s when holes that when the wave crash into it it pushes some steam up and blasts it up and out of the hole and than more steam forms at the bottom rinse & repeat.