I don't really know how to explain myself. I have been in NZ for four days now and it seems like this is home. It is almost too easy to be a tourist in this country.
Jan 4th - 5th
Upon arriving in Christchurch we met our first Kiwi at the bus stop. Over the next two days Natalie became our tour guide and friend. She showed had an hour to kill, so showed us to our hotel. Twenty four hours later she was still with us. We left her for the afternoon to take a bike tour of the city (which was beautiful and sad since the city centre has been destroyed by repeated earthquakes). We toured through the sea town of Sumner and chatted with local fishermen. After our tour we were worn out and plenty burnt. We met back up with Natalie and had dinner at her flat (aka a house in the US) and met her seven flatmates. The assured us that hitchhiking to Kaikoura would be easy, as the country is on their summer holiday now. They told us stories of when then had hitched and stories about the good and bad (meaning sweaty/smelly) hikers they themselves had picked up. All of them agreed that NZ would be the safest and easiest country to hitch hike in. It was a wonderful time, and we spent the rest of the night there eating and sipping on beer until we caught the 11:10 bus back to Chch.
Jan 6th
The hike began. We departed from the bus exchange in downtown Chch and took the bus as far north as we could. Here, the driver stopped the bus, came and explained the best methods for hitching a ride. Within 15 min of standing on the side of the road we had our first ride. An ex-military man with one leg and half of an arm brought us 30 min north, and even passed his home to drive 10 more km to a better spot to get our next ride. He told stories of his service in Papua New Guinea and Africa, so the time passed quickly. We waited has his prime spot for another ride for an hour, but had no luck. The sun was frying us (literally) so we decided to start hiking. After an hour of tramping on the side of the road we found our next ride. Two guys from a 50 km north picked us up, and talked about when they hiked across Australia. (This became a common theme - all the people who gave us a lift had hitched in their earlier days). After we told them about our farmstays they offered their house for the night. They said they had a little work on the farm which we could help with, but we decided to keep heading north to Kaikoura. We found ourselves in the hot sun once again, with temps around 28C, and started hiking. The hills got bigger and the roads got narrower, so we started to fear that we wouldn't get a ride since there was nowhere for cars to pull over. We forgot over the 30 min of hiking that Kiwis are amazing. We soon found ourselves in Kaikoura, only 5 hours after we started the hike. Kaikoura is a crayfish and whale town. Kai means food in Maori, and Koura means crayfish. People dive for crays here (these are more like lobsters, getting up to 3 - 4 kg and costing $80 at a seafood restaurant), swim with the seals, tramp through the hills, and enjoy the no worries attitude. We decided to adopt this attitude in Kaikoura, so when we found out that the one backpackers hostel was full, we decided to sleep under the stars. A few locals pointed us in the right direction, and we found a lovely patch of grass under some old pines. We found a little hedgehog next to our campsite and played with him for almost 15 min. We slept soundly and were only woken up twice by trampers, once at midnight and once at 4am (a little late/early to tramp, eh?). We found that we do more in one day here than we'd do in a week back home. The adventure has only begun here.

Jan 7th
We woke up with the birds at 5:15am. We found ourselves sore from our sunburns (mostly which came from our 5 hr bike ride two days earlier. Though it was cloudy that long without sun screen hurts). The night before we arranged to stay at the hostel, so we dropped off our gear and decided to go for a run. We ran to the point of Kaikoura to the seal colony. This was only 5 or 6 km, so I was able to keep up with Ian's pace. After returning we stopped at a local cafe for breakfast and bought some groceries for lunch and dinner. It was now 8am. We still had a full day ahead of us, and decided to snorkel. We were going to SCUBA, but the two dives would cost roughly $200 US, and we didn't want to start giving away our money at this point of the trip. We were able to rent snorkeling gear (meaning a wetsuit, mask and snorkel, fins, weight belts and a gear bag) for $40US a piece. The people at the shop were very informative of where we should go to see the marine life (this being in a heavily patrolled marine reserve), and afterwards where we should go to find and catch crays and Paua (their species of abalone that sells for $95/kg in the markets). Our first dive lasted almost two hours. We swam through kelp and saw an array of fish, sea stars, urchins, snails, and PAUA! We now knew what they looked like, so we were ready to start the hunt. We started our next dive next to the seal colony and were swimming amongst many people who were spearing fish. We searched and searched for cray and paua, but it was a lot harder to find them in this area that was heavily picked through. After 30 min we found an underside of a rock that had two paua. we pulled out our ruler which we had been given at the dive shop to make sure they were legal size, and they were, so we pried them off. Ian brought a knife, which he attached to his weight belt, and we had dinner. The guy at the dive shop took the shell off an gutted them for us and then let us know hot to prepare them. We got back to the hostel, now it was around 5pm and had a feast of paua. The $80 meal was worth it. It tasted a lot like steak and was very juicy. We spent the rest of the evening chatting to the 20 other backpackers, most from germany, holland, and france, but there were a few americans. Around 9 we headed down to an Irish pub with a crew and finished our night dancing to Irish music there and drinking Guinness. We got back around 1am, and were a little tired since we had been awake for 20hrs. This is the good life. It gets light at 5:15 and stays light until 10:30. The temp is around 25 during the day (in the  80s F) and we have are meeting countless people, all which are extremely generous and willing to talk.
Jan 8th
It is morning and we are off to Blenheim. We plan on hiking to a local waterfall to find a ride to hitch with there. Blenheim is 130 km away, but is the next biggest town, so most people will be heading that direction. We have only been here for 3.5 days now, but it seems like home. It will be nice to settle down at the vineyard, but the adventure has just begun! Wish us luck!

Natalie standing next to one of the churches (in Christchurch) that was in ruins. All the "old" buildings in the town were affected much more drastically than the newer buildings. All of the churches had their steeples on the side of the building like this, regardless of whether they were affected by the last large quake (which was in Feb).

Our bike ride to Sumner. The cargo containers are to prevent the hill from sliding onto the road during the tremors. We experienced a 4.0 tremor while we were there the first full day. Needless to say, we were out and about so we didn't feel it.

The local fishermen fishing for crabs at the New Brighton pier.

Trying to pick up a ride while hiking along the road to Kaikoura.

Sheep on the side of the road. This was during our first hike (while we weren't hitching) after we left Christchurch.

This is the hedgehog that became our friend while we camped out our first night in Kaikoura. We were reluctant to touch him at first but played with him for 15 or so min once he got to know us.

The shells of the paua

The paua meat (apparently here in NZ is the only place in the world where you can find black abalone. They tasted delicious once they were cut in strips and fried in butter).

Enjoying Irish music with our hostel friends at the Irish pub in Kaikoua



Just being really happy to be next to the seals. We stopped here while we were catching a ride to Blenheim.