We woke up early, as we had to board the 8.30am Interislander ferry to cross the beautiful Cook Strait to Picton, a pretty seaside town, which is one of the main gates to explore the marvellous South Island.
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| Bye bye North Island, Hello South Island. |
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| We are boarding the big ship, together with our vehicle. |
The 92km voyage took 3 hours and all of us wished it could be a little longer, as we did not have enough of the beautiful Cook Strait. 3 hours passed by in the blink of an eye. Papa Bear and Brother Bear spent most of their time at the open deck, feasting on the amazingly beautiful views and 'enjoying' the strong wind. We, the 3 girls, spent our time watching a little bit of cartoons, sipping some hot drinks, playing at the indoor playground and most of the time joining the boys outside.
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| The TV area. |
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| The indoor playground. |
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| The magnificent view. |
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| Do you like the background colours? So picturesque. |
Interislander was awesome in every aspects, from its cleanliness, comfort, facilities, communications, friendliness and also its efficiency of loading and unloading of vehicles. We were out driving on the Picton road by 12pm. Picton is a very pretty small coastal town in the Marlborough Sounds of New Zealand. The beautiful views along the way from Picton to Kaikoura made us feel so good, as if we were on top of the world!
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| A beautiful 'castle' along the open road from Picton to Kaikoura. |
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| The blue and green which greeted us all the way from Picton to Kaikoura. |
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| You won't get sleepy driving on this beautiful coastal road. |
We stopped by Ohau Point Seal Colony, as Papa Bear spotted seals even before we reached the lookout point. We were so excited to see the wild seals in their natural habitat. Some of the seals enjoyed our attention that they were doing some actions which kept us busy snapping pictures and laughing at their cuteness overload.
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| Spotted our first seal. :) |
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| More seals. If you can't see them, zoom in, as they camouflaged. Haha... |
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A colourful train passed by as we were busy watching the seals.
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We continued our journey and I could not stop taking pictures of all the beautiful sceneries. New Zealand is indeed a very beautiful country. We arrived Kaikoura around 2.30pm and we decided to check into the motel to have some rest before we went out for seal hunting again. Kaikoura Cottages Motel is a relatively new motel in Kaikoura. We took the family sized cottage which accommodates 5 persons comfortably. The place was very clean and the owner was very friendly. The view from our cottage was awesome, overseeing the snow capped mountains. My only complaint was the low water pressure in the shower, it was not comfortable to have your long hair washed during the cold winter. Oh yes, it would be nice if all beds are fitted with electric blankets. During our stay, only the main bed had the electric blanket. :)
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| Our cottage. |
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| The living area. |
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| Kids room. |
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| The view from our cottage. |
We went out for seal hunting after all of us had some rests. Before we caught sight of another seal, the sight of a seafood stall caught our attention. Haha... We ordered Salmon and Cray Fish served with salads and rice. As the stall was closing, so we asked for take away and had a picnic at the Seal Colony which was just a few metres away. All of us enjoyed the freshness of the seafood very much. Life was truly awesome.
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| We were busy eating, you would see more pictures of the food in our next day adventure. : |
We just spent time watching the seals, chasing the birds and enjoying the peacefulness of the beautiful Kaikoura for that whole evening. We are lucky that our kids are nature lovers that they enjoy peacefulness of just staring at the blue sky, admiring the nature, listening to the ocean waves and playing among themselves. They are good travellers and we are blessed to have them around us, the experience would never be the same without them.
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| The view from the Seal Colony in the evening. |
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| Brother Bear who loves nature a lot. |
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| A clearer view of the snow capped mountains. |
We left the Seal Colony around 5.45pm, it was cold and windy, it was getting darker too. A young couple was hitchhiking. We took them in, as they looked so cold and tired. They are tourists like us, but from China. We dropped them at i-Site and we then headed for grocery shopping at New World Supermarket. We need to buy food to cook for dinner. Our kids enjoy grocery shopping in New Zealand, as they love the fresh apples and kiwis, and of course some local snacks which they had not seen back home.
We had a good rest after dinner. Papa Bear and I logged on to Facebook to read some news updates back home and kids enjoyed their movie and fruit platters. The motel has a small DVD library, FOC for all guests.
Everyone slept early and kids were excited knowing that we would spend another 2 nights in a farm in Rangiora.
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