Sweet As

New Zealand is beautiful. It is a place where on every turn in the road the scenery can take your breath away. It was a different kind of beauty then the sunny beaches and ocean I had been surrounded by for the last several months (not that I am complaining). NZ is truly gorgeous and an outdoor enthusiast and thrill seekers dream. I decided to focus most of my time in NZ on the south island which is known to be more beautiful with more outdoor activities to offer travelers.

I arrived in Christchurch which is a cute little town with a great weekend market that is very welcoming and brought a completely different vibe then Australia did for me. Much more chill, outdoor focused, and backpacker focused I thought. Mary and I had originally planned on renting a car and driving around the south island exploring it for ourselves. Since plans had changed I spent my first day in Christchurch checking hostel message boards and posting my own notes looking for people that wanted to roadtrip the south island with me. I also began looking into other options for travel which focused on the various groups hop on hop off backpacker buses that circled New Zealand. I decided to book a two week tour with the Stray bus because they focused on getting off the tourist beaten track giving travelers a more alternative, NZ cultural focused experience. Most of the travelers were a bit older then the 18 year olds high school grads that are usually drawn to the ´green f--- bus´(as it is lovingly referred to) backpacker bus. All the bus does is bring us from place to place and the accommodations we book and activities we do in each town is our choice. Luckily I ended up with a really great group of people who I stayed with almost my entire journey of the south island. I really loved my experiences in New Zealand and it remains one of my favorite countries of this trip.

After two days in Christchurch I boarded the orange Stray bus and we were off to Kaikoura where I took a beautiful hike all along the sea cliffs checking out the seals (got a little too close to one) and just enjoyed my first of many beautiful NZ days. The next day we drove up to Picton and took a boat trip around the Marlborough Sounds. We got an AMAZING dolphin show while on the boat, all the dolphins jumping, playing and swimming with the boat. Then it was too a local Scottish bar to catch some March Madness games. My other main focus during the trip was to catch as many college NCAA tournament games I could- specifically Villanova games. With a 21 hour time difference it was pretty challenging and required some bribes with bartenders, 9am games, and complaints from locals that wanted to watch something else on TV. If you have met me you would expect nothing less. Let me just say March Madness doesn´t have the same following in NZ as it does in the States. In Picton we had some interesting 70 to 80 yr old guy roommates in our dorm who announced, in advanced, that they all snore very badly and even offered us the extra earplugs they carry around for people staying in the same dorm as they are. Note- great earplugs are an essential backpacking item (thanks Snugs). That night to help us get some sleep we went to a local Irish bar the carried the best Guinness in NZ. I have do doubt that it was, even TJ, our resident Irish bloke, gave it the thumbs up.
The next day we were to change buses and met the core travel group that I hung with over the next week. My bus was filled with mostly English backpackers, a few Canadians, Team Sweden, and TJ. I was the token American on the bus and was reminded of it often. Our driver was B.P. which stands for British Petroleum because of a streaking incident through the BP gas station during his Stray driver initiation. He filled our long drives with hilarious stories as well as loads of New Zealand facts and history. He also used the phrase ´sweet as´all the time, as do all NZers. Basically ´sweet as´is used to say almost anything like- sure, OK, it was great, amazing time, let´s go. You can really just say it at the end of any sentence if you want.
Abel Tasmin was one of the most beautiful stops on my NZ journey. It is a gorgeous national park (one of many) set along the beach and lakes. We camped for two nights here, enjoying the nightly bonfires, huge Kiwi BBQ, fresh mussels from the sea, and the silence of being in the middle of paradise. During the day a few of us decided to do a beautiful 12 km hike through the Park to Anchorage Beach. Once on the beach we had a catamaran (Straycat) waiting for us to take us back to our campsite. On our journey back I saw my one and only penguin, more seals, and the impressive cliffs over the magical blue water. Sweet As.