Wellington-Picton-Kaikoura

So it's been a little while since we've sent an update. Internet has been pretty expensive lately ($1 for 10 minutes) so it's been hard to do everything in 10 minutes...

Wellington- We left Masterton the other day and arrived in Wellington which is an adorable city. Definitely our favorite after Taupo so far. Since it was our last night with Rob and Maria we decided to go out on the town for a beer or 2. After eating at an Italian place for dinner we ended up at a pub where a local band was about to start playing. They were really good and played a lot of cover songs of classic as well as new songs. A couple people started dancing on the dance floor, but then these 2 girls who didn't know each other started doing ballet to the music. No joke... it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen and they didn't know each other. So the band even made a comment about it, something like "anyone know any ballet songs we can play?" So the band kept playing and they made another comment about the girls dancing. It became awkward because no one wanted to dance because they felt bad if they got in the way of these girls twirling and kicking their legs out. People around were looking at each other saying "what is going on?" I decided I'd take things into my own hands to make it not so awkward so I gave my beer to Cam, looked at him, Rob, and Maria and said "watch this." I ran out on the dance floor and did my own interpretive dancing haha... twirls, leg kicks, foot shuffles... all around the dance floor hahaha (mom, just picture me and Molly dancing in the kitchen). Everyone starting laughing and cheering (even the band) and then I exited. It was pretty funny.

Picton- The next day we took the ferry from Wellington to Picton. It was really cold and rainy but just clear enough to see the view of the Queen Charlotte Sound as we arrived in Picton. When we arrived we walked around to a few places to check out prices. First we went to Atlantis, a hostel that looked like a run down college dorm. It was really gross so we moved on. We ended up at the YHA where we paid $58 for the night and ended up getting our own house that was separate from the main dorm.

We went out to dinner and bought a few things to make breakfast. We decided to go back to the main part of the hostel where a few people were hanging out in the lounge and play a round of cards (we've been playing A LOT of cards). We met a couple that had just been through the whole south island so we exchanged places to stay and go, a German that was traveling on his own for a couple months and hitch hiking the whole way. We also met a man from Malta who we had seen on the ferry and our bus. We talked to him for a few minutes and he told us he recognized me because he saw me do my interpretive dancing at the bar the night before hahaha!! oops!

Kaikoura-

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and went to the train station where we would go to Kaikoura. We dropped our bags off and went across the street to play a round of mini golf to pass the time until we had to leave. We boarded the train were on our way. It was a beautiful train ride and only took about 2 hours. When we got there we walked into town, which was only about 300 meters away. We looked at the first place which was nice but decided to check out the hostel that the couple we met stayed at called The Albatross. It seemed like a far walk since we had our heavy bags but it was only about a 1/4-1/2 mile away. We showed up and all they had was a 2 bedroom apartment for $150/night. They told us they'd give it to us for $75/night since we were staying more than 1 night but there would be a chance we'd get another couple in the other room. After discussing it for about 20 minutes we decided to stay. We were able to get a room for 2 nights and food for 2 days for $115 each. We won't be going out to dinner which is great.

Today we are going to go swim with the dolphins and hike around the peninsula. Tomorrow we're going to Kayak before our bus to Queenstown.