Head banging in a rental car.

The second leg of my TransAlpine experience was way better than the first and it didn't leave me as disappointed as I thought I would be. Not sure if it was worth the money but it was good indeed. It also might be that after 19 or so months that I've been on the road I have just seen too much and I can't appreciate the things anymore. Having said that I do still get those moment when I just yell aloud that "This is f******* amazing", so I guess I'm still able to enjoy things and sceneries.

 

I guess I should have been doing some thing else...HE
STARTED IT!

I wasn't exactly looking forward to see CC again but there was a reason why I was excited. I was gonna have my own wheels for 48 hours. Happy days! I spent one night in infamous CC and I have to tweek my opinion a little bit. The rebound wasn't as traumatising experience as the first one was. I actually saw some signs of life, probably due the weekend but still ;) Oh yes, once again I managed to get a ride. Next to me in the train sat this Swiss girl and she told me that her Kiwi friend was about to pick her up from the train station. "Is there any chance that she could take me to my hostel?" And there was indeed. I got a ride all the way to my hostels front yard. You just have to ask, aye? The Kiwi woman had even been to Finland and we ended up having a funny conversation about Finnish wedding traditions. She thought it was a bit strange that the bride was "stolen" for 4 hours at the wedding. "Yeah, it's quite common to "steal" the bride but maybe not for 4 hours....""And yes, its quite common that Finns go to sauna naked."

Anyway, the next day I went to pick up my rental car. "Isn't it freaking expensive to have a rental car in NZ?" Yes it is but I got the car for free. You heard right, for free. Well I did have to pay for the gasoline though but other than that the car was free. "How is it possible?"- you ask.

East coast, south island

Relocation cars is the answer! Tourists pick up the cars from point A and drop them at point B but since most cars are being picked up from point A they need to be relocated. Makes all the sense doesn't it? So I had 48 hours to get the car from CC to a place called Picton but I had unlimited kilometres. Detours, here I came :D

Me and my "baby". Toyota Yaris. 

Just a friendly reminder to stay on the left lane.

The car had a pretty decent stereo system and I was banging
my head whilst listening some Finnish heavy metal.

I took every scenic detour there was and stopped every now and then to take pictures. One of the best stops was at a place called Kaikoura. Check these pictures.

Seagull!

Kaikoura

Busted!

I have to say that driving on the left side of the road ain't that big deal. It might require a bit more concentration at first but other than that there's really no difference. The only problems I had was with the indicators and the windscreen wipers. Since they were also on mirrored I ended up wiping my windscreen a couple of times instead of indicating which way to go. Well I did use the indicators eventually. Nothing wrong with a clean windscreen!

I have heard quite a lot of sad stories about people driving on the wrong side of the road here. I actually met a couple that made the mistake but luckily survived without collision. The Kiwi that almost hit them was quite mad at them though and I don't blame him. There's been more than enough crashes here in NZ that have lead to a death. There's even a special phone number you can call if you see some one driving badly or on the wrong side and trust me when I say that the roads here are crowded with tourists. Some tourists (mostly Asian) have even been stopped and the car keys taken from them because of bad/wrong side driving. I guess I did ok since I didn't get a call from the rental place =)

In the end of the day I ended up getting to a place called Picton which is on the north of south island. From Picton goes the ferry to the south island and Wellington, the capital. I was getting closer to the end of my south island leg.

Holy cow. I almost forgot this. At the seashore in Kaikoura I was questioned by this elderly woman about my though of Kaikoura and if I wanted a big resort over there. That was the fastest poll ever. "No, I don't want anything built here". "No, I wouldn't be interested in golfing here", and so on. After we finished I asked her about a place where I could eat affordably. She told me to go to the town centre and on the left hand side there would be a cafe/restaurant with a blue sign.
Muahahahaaa. Why Not cafe. I just had to eat there :D

My kind of place!

First fish&chips meal in NZ. Disappointment =/