Michael and I traveled to New Zealand as part of our 2007 career break. The following is an excerpt from our travel blog.
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We were excited to see New Zealand before we even landed. From the sky we could see the crystal blue waters, the glistening white mountaintops, and the vast green pastures of the beautiful South Island. We were ready to get going.

New Zealand is much smaller and easier to travel around than Australia, so we decided to higher a car so we could take our time exploring the South Island. New Zealand is so small in populace (4 million people) that even their cities have a small town feel to them. We arrived in Christchurch late afternoon, so after finding a place to stay, our next task was to find some food and wander the quiet streets.

[singlepic=321,175,,,right]Our one planned activity in Christchurch was the next morning. Throughout New Zealand it is common to find fish hook bone carvings as necklaces – a Maori tradition dating back thousands of years with the purpose of actually fishing with them. Instead of buying one, we were to make our own.

We arrived at The Bone Dude’s studio at 9am and by noon, we had our very own bone carving (see slideshow).

Right after finishing, we hit the road for our next stop – the coastal town of Kaikoura. The drive up offered some brilliant scenery – green, rolling hills that seemed to be almost ocean-like, appearing as large swells across the land with thousands of sheep dotting the land like whitecaps. We’d turn a corner and come across forests of yellow-flowered trees bursting brightly like the sun appearing from behind the sun. And as we started to approach Kaikoura, the brilliant blue waters flowed into site.

As beautiful of a site New Zealand was from the air, it was even better to be on land.

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