Days Twenty One to Twenty Three - January 22-24 - Last Days on the Kiwi Experience Bus!

The morning of January 22nd, we left Kaikoura and headed across the Cook Strait by way of Interislander Ferry to Wellington.

On the way, we made a quick stop at a breeding seal colony. It was very interesting to see the seal pups play with each other, similar to dog pups. Unlike the seal colony Brandon and I had visited in Kaikoura, this was a breeding colony, and the seals were far more territorial and protective. I wouldn't recommend getting too close to a breeding colony, as they can be very aggressive.

When we arrived at Picton, we got our ferry tickets and headed out of the terminal into town for lunch. Picton is a pretty little town, situated amongst low bush covered mountains, and it has a great beach. 
After a 2.5 hour ferry ride, we finally arrived in Wellington. For anyone looking to travel NZ, you should know that the entire CBD of Wellington has free WIFI!

That evening, our bus mates got together for a faiRly historical event - Ben, a guy from Aussie on our bus was allowing a few other guys to cut his hair for $100. Ben's hair is fairly long, and he had it in a pretty cool style. David and Daniel from London, as well as Henrik and Rasmus from Denmark did the honors of giving Ben a horribly awful haircut, which was then fixed and cut pretty short by a girl from Denmark on our bus, Sibene. After the drama, we all headed to the bar for a night out.

The next day Morgan, Jackie, Sparrow and I were getting on the bus, and we were splitting up with a lot of the others we had been on the bus with for a while.  From Wellington we made our way up to Taupo, and stayed there for a night. Sparrow and I checked out some thermal hot springs, right near the river. It was really neat, because could sit in a small stream coming from the hot springs, and when you got too hot, you could jump into the cold river flowing past. A very neat experience. 

The next morning we made our way up the north Island, through Matamata aka. Hobbiton up to Auckland. It was in Auckland where we met up with our friend Thomas Cuthbert, and did a hike up to Mount Eden that afternoon. Definitely an incredible view of the city.  Later that night we headed in to the downtown CBD to a bar called Cassette 9 to meet some friends from the bus that were with us earlier in the trip - Mitri (Brazil), Frances and Leigh (Ireland) and our bus driver, Olly. Great night for partying, that ended similar to any bar night back home - at McDonald's!   I had such a fabulous time doing the Kiwi Experience, being able to see so much of New Zealand in such a short period of time (22 days) was mind blowing, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone traveling to New Zealand for the first time!