Goodbye South Island, Hellooooooooooo North Island...

According to Māori mythology, the legend Māui used the jaw-bone of his ancestress Muri-ranga-whenua as a fish-hook to haul a great fish up from the ocean. Māui left his brothers in charge of the fish while he went to fetch a priest to perform the appropriate ceremonies and prayers, but the brothers were greedy and started cutting it up before he had returned. Immediately, the fish began writhing in agony, causing it to break up into the mountains, cliffs and valleys that now form the North Island; the Wellington region at its head. And so here I am, standing jubilantly upon Te Upoko o Te Ika a Māui - "The Head of Māui's Fish".
I realise there has been somewhat of a delay between posts, but that's what I'm here to fix. Going back a couple of weeks, we (Nicole and I) did end up heading out to the Otago Peninsula the night I last blogged. But instead of Yellow-eyed Penguins, we actually saw the very small, very rare Blue Penguins coming ashore. They walked within a metre right past us and to their inland burrows where their month-old young were waiting anxiously (and noisily) for their nightly feed. It was quite calming to see these beautifully fragile creatures going about their business, completely unperturbed by the eyes of the many onlookers - filled with wonder - watching their every move.
We left early the next morning as there was a huge trip ahead of us - over 550km to Kaikoura, with a few points of interest along the way. The first of these stops was that damn "tallest tree". We found it! Turns out that last time we had missed the bluntly obvious gate signalling the entrance to the track and walked for 2 hours through someone's private farming land.. Whoops! It appears as if it's only the tallest tree in New Zealand though, not the entire Southern Hemisphere, but that's ok.. Another adjective maximised. It was (as expected) quite tall, 69.1m tall to be exact. Eucalyptus regnans is its genus, providing a strong boost to the Aussie male ego.
After this we passed by a spot wishfully named Shag Point. There were some more seals down this way, lounging around, and a beach where you could view the elusive Yellow-eyed Penguin. We were initially a little skeptical about seeing them, but eventually spotted two standing by their nest on the beach. Sneaking 50m or so amongst the shrubs brought me quite close to them before they spotted me and waddled back to the safety of their nest. Shag Point was also the site where an almost complete skeleton of a seven-metre long Elamosaurus, a member of the plesiosaur family, was found - a rare find.
Further up the east coast is a place called Moeraki, just south of Oamaru. It is on the Moeraki beach and shoreline that the very unusual and very interesting Moeraki Boulders are found. These rocks are known as septarian concretions. Basically, they are almost perfectly spherical formations of around 2 metre diameter, cemented in shape by calcite deposits with cracks lined by scalenohedral calcite crystals radiating outwards from the centre (called septaria). Maybe try Wikipedia for a more in-depth explanation. Did I mention very interesting?
I had planned to get to Christchurch's award-winning Antarctic Centre on the way through, but their opening times were different than advertised in the Lonely Planet book so we arrived a little too late. So onwards to Kaikoura. Kaikoura, the home of whale-watching I had visited when I first arrived in NZ, also proved to be a place where I could experience something I had never contemplated before. Sitting behind the instrument panel of a Cessna 150, something not dissimilar to the plane from which I skydived, I was taken up to cruising altitude over the Kaikoura Peninsula and then left to take over the controls.. I actually flew a plane! For half an hour I was the pilot of this 2-seater light plane, taking my first flying lesson. I now have 0.4 hours flying time towards my solo pilot's licence! Maybe if I can get some money together I might consider this... It's only about $NZ8,500 in total.
By about lunchtime we had reached Blenheim, NZ's main grape-growing region. We had a bit of a drive around the vineyards yet I recognised only one out of about 50 wineries that had grapes grown in the area. This was Nobilo. And Lee, I found out that Stepping Stone is actually a South Australian wine, from Padthaway, not NZ as you suggested. Good to see all those years of wine marketing going to good use ;)
By the end of the day I had reached Picton after having dropped Nicole off at her friend's house in Blenheim. Picton is quite a nice town, and is the gateway to the South Island as the ferry across Cook Strait (between the North and South Islands) arrives here from Wellington. There was not much to do especially as the weather was not crash hot, but I did meet some great people, including a funny and very chatty German (yes, they are all funny and chatty!!) named Christoph and we shared photos and stories of our South Island experiences. Turns out Christoph had bumped into another German guy that I had also met for only a day a couple of months ago, very odd. And because I had never caught this German guy's name, we had to figure this all out by description. Small world.. But I guess more accurately, small country!
In the morning, I drove Tana into the vehicle holding bay of the Bluebridge ferry and said my goodbyes to the South Island. Three hours later, following a very relaxed journey across Cook Strait, I had arrived in Wellington just before midday.

Photos to follow, along with another post.

Photos:
1. Freak hail storm in Dunedin
2. Standing on top of.. Huh? - "The Pyramids", Otago Peninsula
3. View from Mount Cargill, Dunedin
4. Nicole looking up at the million-year-old Organ Pipes. What is that in her bag?
5. Bloody huge! NZ's tallest tree.. Phew, finally found it!
6. Their eyes really are yellow!
7. The Moeraki Boulders
8. Cubby house..
9. Brilliant sky over the Kaikoura region
10. Eerie trees, on the way to Kaikoura
11. Top Gun!
12. Cessna 150 - the plane they would have you believe I flew
13. The plane I actually flew...
14. I love those signs, they have them all over the country: this one and many others like it..