Land of Lambs: New Zealand

I cannot believe its already February when just yesterday felt like I was ringing in the new year. It feels like we only just got back from our amazing 2 week trip to New Zealand. I can already tell that this year is going to fly by!

This past December we had Adam's mother and step father come for a wonderful visit to us here in Sydney. Almost immediately following Adam and I headed off with 2 friends, Alex and Esther, to the south Island of New Zealand. It has taken me some time to decide how to write this only because the trip was so amazing and magical that for me, putting it into words wasn't going to be easy.

First off, just in case you didn't know, New Zealand is it's own country and made up of 2 islands, the north and the south and are both located south east of Sydney. We chose to dedicate 2 weeks to just the south island and whether you decided to go north or not I would not recommend anything less than 2 weeks for the south island. Anything less and you will either miss a ton of stuff or spend most of your time in the car.

Contrary to popular belief, New Zealander's are called Kiwi's, for short, due to the inhabitant of a  little bird unique to this area.


We started our trip in Christchurch and immediate headed north to Kaikora. We got in fairly late and after paying a little visit to a Sea Lion colony, of 2, we headed off to Green Dolphin for dinner. Yum!

The next day was one of my most memorable and favorite days as we spent it sailing and swimming with wild dolphins. We sailed for over and hour looking for pods of dolphins and our first 2 were fairly large with any where between 20-30 dolphins. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better we got a call from a local fisherman advising us of an even larger pod. I cannot explain what it was like swimming with almost 400 dolphins! Watch the video!

After an amazing day I truly felt it was going to be hard to top this. Freshened up and hit the road to Blenheim. Along the drive up we stopped off at a fabulous restaurant, The Store, which was recommended by my co-worker, Madeline, who is a native Kiwi. It was a gorgeous setting and amazing food that I would suggest going to if you are in the area.

At the start of our journey we quickly learned that there is a 9:1 ration of sheep to people in NZ.

Following lunch our adventure continued on to Blenheim.