Journey down the east coast

One of the first foods we were introduced to here was Pic's Peanut Butter. As most of you know I am a peanut butter fanatic, so finding what I would call the best peanut butter of my life was so exciting. Luckily for us, Pic's headquarters is in Nelson and offers free daily tours! They explained during the tour that the reason their peanut butter is so good is because the peanuts are roasted before they are grinded and then they get bottled in only 15 minutes. I was so tempted to buy a 5kg bucket of peanut butter, but the $64 price tag seemed even too much for my pb love. We stocked up with a 1kg jar and the nice lady working there threw in a jar for free! Hopefully we can make these jars last over a week this time.

Pic's Factory!

So much peanut butter, but never enough.

We took off the next day and drove south to Nelson Lakes National Park. The first sight we saw upon arrival was a beautiful, clear lake with giant snow capped mountains in the background. After a short stop at the visitors center for a hike recommendation, we put our boots on and started for a long hike up Mt. Roberts. It was a tough and steep jaunt to the summit, but the views were some of the best I've seen yet. 360 degree views of multiple lakes and mountains on all sides really can't be beat.

Lake Rotoiti

On top of Mt. Roberts

Cute old hut they used to use for skiiers

Mamma and her baby ducklings came right up to our car!

As much as we wanted to stay in Nelson Lakes, we only had a few days left before our next workaway was going to start, so we continued on driving back up to the east coast to Blenheim. The wineries lining every road reminded us of the Willamette Valley so we had no choice but to go wine tasting. We started at Hans Herzog, a beautiful winery world famous for their elaborate ($200 a plate!) dinners and then ventured down the road to Cloudy Bay where we tasted a superb Pinot Gris.

Hans Herzog

Cool swing chair at Cloudy Bay

We continued our journey down the coast on Saturday morning towards he coastal surf town of Kaikora. Our book of "off the beaten path" outings told about a waterfall just off the highway where we might get to see baby seals. As we pulled up and saw tons of people we quickly realized this was no longer a hidden gem unfortunately. Although there were tons of people, it was such a cool site! Somehow the baby seals climb up this quite long and rocky river bed to play in a pool below the waterfall. There were five babies jumping and swimming through the pool and some bigger seals at various points of the river leading towards the waterfall. When we reached Kaikora, we decided to do a coastal walk where we saw even more seals- these ones were real fatties though. Blake thought one was a rock and was only inches from stepping on him. As cute as they are, apparently they aren't the nicest so you definitely want to keep your distance.

It's hard to tell, but this is where the baby seals were swimmng

Really fat seal!

Ocean view on our walk around the Kaikora peninsula

Our last free day was spent in the mountain town called Hanmer Springs. We spent our morning hiking up to Dog Stream waterfall and then rewarded ourselves with a trip to the hot springs that afternoon. We forgot to take pictures, but this hot springs was huge! There were at least ten different pools to choose from all with varying temperatures. We could've stayed all day, but we were starting to turn pruny after a few hours. Although we had a great time adventuring on our own for two weeks, we were really excited to get to our workaway. First of all, Blake's stove broke that day, so we were out of luck for cooking our own food. We also realized how expensive food is here and are even more appreciative now when we get our meals provided for us at the workaways. I surprised myself how much I enjoyed camping, but I was so excited to sleep in a bed again. Our new hosts live in a tiny town outside of Christchurch and are incredibly welcoming and nice. The best part- they only live 50 meters from the pub!

Blake at Dog Stream waterfall