Spring Break Part 3 - Kaikoura

After an awesome time in Marlborough and a day of random adventures in the rolling hills of New Zealand we were on our way to Kaikoura. The drive was somewhat windy, but we had some spectacular views as we drove right by the ocean and around every turn in the road, enormous mountain ranges would come into view and got us all more and more excited to get to our destination.

At Kaikoura!

Once we reached the little town that is Kaikoura we filled ourselves up with some awesome fish and chips, walked along the rocky beach and then headed to our official free campground. It was probably the sweetest campground yet as we met a really cool couple there that were travelling around all of New Zealand in a huge van trying to see and take in as much of New Zealand as they could. We also made sure to inform them that the next morning we were planning on summitting Mt. Fyffe in case we didn't show up back at the campsite before night fall...

The next morning came around before we knew it and we were all a little apprehensive about the hike that was ahead of us, and it didn't help that the sky was absolutely overcast and extremely creepy looking. But we marched on hoping that it would eventually clear up. Unfortunately for us the first two hours of the journey was straight up hill on a 4X4 car track which we of course had to walk up because there was no way that our car would make it up..

Flatties!! Woo. 

And up we climbed...

 Zak doing some necessary stretching and yoga on the way up, haha. 

The views started getting pretty epic pretty fast. 

Once we got to the hut we took a break and waited for the sun to come out....we ran into another group of kids from Uni who had spent the night there and confirmed our beliefs that the views from the summit were going to be great. Then we played cards, ran into an Irish woman who also hung out at the hut for a bit, and finally twenty minutes after she set off, we decided to drop any hope of the sky clearing up and we set off as well. Unfortunately the rest of the hike up to the summit was all in snow and so our feet were soaked and cold within minutes. 

 On the way up! The sky is looking pretty sketch here...

 There is the Kaikoura peninsula!

I will admit I was getting pretty nervous as we started getting closer and closer to the summit, because the wind was picking up, the sky was remaining dark and ominous, and it seemed like the summit was not getting any closer. I trusted Zak and Phil who have done a lot of mountain climbing in Colorado to let me know if things were getting hairy and if it would become necessary for us to turn around, and so I trudged on. And also seeing the Irish lady reach the summit made me want to be there even more. Finally.... we made it!! And the Irish lady took our picture :)

View from the summit! Nothing beats the exhilaration of climbing up a mountain and ending at views like this...

I was pretty happy to be on the way back down because I was still afraid of the ominous clouds but we made it back down out of the winds fury safely. The way back down was so insanely painful on the knees though that Hayley and I spent a good chunk of the descent walking backwards to keep the strain off of our poor, poor knee joints. It actually helped! When we got back to the car we all felt super happy, and super accomplished and again treated ourselves to some wonderful fish and chips :)

So Happy! LIFE IS GOOD :)

We slept super well the night after climbing Mt. Fyffe and all awoke in super good spirits. We knew we had a pretty chill day ahead of us and planned on doing the 3-5 hour coastal walk of the Kaikoura Peninsula. However Phil and Hayley decided to check out the town of Kaikoura instead so just Zak and I set out on the track. The views were amazing, and seals were absolutely everywhere!

You could get so close to the seals!!

Soon after the point of the last picture we reached a point where there were about ten seals sleeping and sun bathing and completely blocking our path to this really cool looking cave. We tried throwing rocks into the water next to the seals to scare them and make them move but alas, they refused to budge, too comfortable in their spot. 

We even accidentally hit the seal with a small rock and he didn't even twitch..

 So beautiful! 

We were pretty exhausted after the coastal walk from all the clambering up and down hills and rocks that we did and were pretty happy once we were back in our smelly car. At that point it was about day nine or ten without a shower-- going strong! Haha. And off to Hanmer Springs we went!