vacation vacation vacation (ash)

Finally done on the mountain and we're back in the swing of things with vacationing and traveling. Packed up all our gear and headed out on Monday Oct 12th in a car of 2 friends also headed to Wellington. It was like 'Country Comes to Town' when we finally got to the city! We shared a hostel room with the 3 guys from St. Louis and all 7 of us went out to explore the city and grab a few beers at the Mac's Brewery. First thing I did though was walk straight to Starbucks and get a raspberry mocha. Heaven! I knew I missed Starbucks, but it was even better than I expected! Can't get too used to the pampering though, we need to stay on a budget to get through 2 months of traveling without working. Tuesday we walked around the entire city taking in the sights and sounds. Biggest city we've been to in over 4 months! It was a tiring day but very fulfilling. We made dinner with Darran and Laura at the hostel and hit the hay early. Wednesday we hopped a bus around 10am to go across the harbor to look at a few cars. After another few hours of walking around we finally got to the one we originally went to see and bought it. 1996 Mitsubishi station wagon! What a big moment, our first car we've bought together and it's a POS we've now named the Gray Goblin. We'll call her Gob for short. So far she's served us really well because we've spent three nights or 'camping' and sleeping in the back. It allows us to get somewhere and scope out the area and chose a spot to camp at later.

Thursday we were in the Marlborough region so we spend a good, full day wine tasting. The area is known for it's whites, specifically Riesling and Pinot Gris. Whites aren't our normal choice to drink, but it was a great day and educational. We hit the road in the late afternoon so we could make it to our next stop before dark and we finally hit the coast and the Pacific Ocean. What a beautiful sight! Driving along there were snow capped mountains on our right and a sparkling blue and turquoise sea on our left. We stayed in Kaikoura for the night after cooking dinner at a picnic table over looking the small town and expansive coastline. A beautiful setting to wake up to! After a (fun) day of driving in the misty rain we went to some thermal pools in the mountains, such a needed relaxing afternoon!! Drove on a bit further to camp at a campground in the mountains outside of Christchurch. Would have been nice if the weather cooperated, but the misty rain was refreshing and we woke up early and headed to Christchurch....it's another big city, but nothing spectacular. We splurged on a nice hotel room and fancy dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary and we've just enjoyed staying in and watching tv and enjoying the finer things in life that we've missed over the past few months.

Got to get up and get going today now. We'll head out on the peninsula near by to do some sightseeing and more of what we do best, travel around and relax!