Kiwi-land!

Landed in Christchurch the evening of June 16th, to about 5°C and a cold rain. Hurray summer! :) I ran into a little problem at the Melbourne airport, in that I had only bought a one-way ticket to NZ. And they didn't want me to stay. Or at least, in order to be eligible for a tourist visa, you apparently need proof that you're not going to stay, hiding among the flocks of sheep, or herds of deer, cows, and alpacas.
So luckily I was in plenty of time to check-in, and had to buy my return flight at the counter (as things stand, Auckland-Sydney on July 9, though this may well change). I thought I was going to get stung, but managed to get a cheap fair. I can change it, but I'm going to try to avoid it if possible. I'm too cheap. But July 9 gives me nearly 4 weeks, which, while not plenty, gives me a chance to see a fair bit.

Coincidentally, I met another Canadian, Jeff, at the hostel I was staying at in Christchurch. He had recently bought a camper van, and was looking for someone to share gas costs with, so I've hopped in with him for a week or so. We left Christchurch heading southish, and ended up in Methven (pop. 1300), near Mt. Hutt, one of the ski fields with the longest season in NZ. Jeff spent a day snowboarding and I, I met another friendly traveller, Lindsay (most recently of Truckee, CA), who I spend a day wandering around with. Lindsay has a job in Methven for the season, but had just arrived, so had a couple of days. We took a three hour walking trail around the town, and met one of the locals, Vincent, who was walking his dog, Benson. (His accent was quite strong for a Kiwi, and Lindsay and I were both unsure as to whether the dog's name was also "Vincent". We decided it was "Benson" but we weren't completely sure.) He took great delight in talking about his dog, and gave us a bit of local Methven gossip, which I dare not repeat.
We left Methven this morning, driving south along the coast through Timaru to Oamaru. I'm spending the night in a hostel as I've been cold all day, but Jeff is sleeping in the van tonight. We drove to the shore to see penguins (see earlier post!), as there are two species nesting on the coast: little blue and yellow eyed. They were charging $20 to see the little blue penguins, but it was free to see the yellow eyed ones--as long as you stood at the top of the cliff. Which we did, in the cold onshore breeze, and spotted two penguins in the distance. That's a 100% improvement since my last attempt at penguin spotting!

(Oh, and the hostel I'm staying at has a pet axolotl named "Axel"!)