Helen and the Chocolate Factory

Cadburyworld. Hum. Sounds interesting. So I decided to pay it a visit on a post-rugby high on Sunday. But I got there a bit early- nine am to be precise. On a Sunday! This not drinking lark isn't doing me any favours at all. I had to hang around in the visitor's centre until ten when all the normal people started to arrive. I did learn some stuff like..... erm, cocao beans were used as currency in ye olde days in South America and it was possible to buy a slave for around two and half bars of dairy milk. The English invented milk chocolate as they couldn't handle the bitterness of the usual dark blend. It was originally served only in drink form.

Disappointingly, the factory itself was shut, it being a Sunday and all. But I did see a video all about chocolate and a chocolate waterfall- which smelt fantastic! I ate some samples- asked some questions- took photos in the gift shop as we weren't allowed to take photos anywhere else- and left. I did find out that the reason that Aussie chocolate is a bit crap (in my opinion) is that it is made with powdered milk rather than the liquid stuff that NZ and England use. But the Aussie curly wurlies are made in Dunedin.

But even had the factory been open, I was running a bit short of time as I had another activity planned for the afternoon- busy busy! I was going on the Elm Wildlife Tour. Sounded like a good Sunday afternoon activity, rock up on a bus, take some photos of seals, penguins and sealions before clambering back on the bus and heading home. Not quite.

For starters, the beginning of the tour was all about birds and I suddenly realised that I was on a bird-watchers tour as they handed out the binoculars. Fortunately we were only really interested in seeing the local albatross population- and with birds that big you don't really need binoculars! They flew around and overhead and I got some great photos of the sky shortly after an albatross had flown through it. Next stop was the New Zealand fur seal colony. Down a hill. And back up again to get to the beach that the sealions use. And back up again to spy on the penguins returning from a hard day's fishing, nervously eyeing up the sealions sleeping further down the beach. Back down to the beach where even the frisky sealion that had chased us before had settled down. Back up the hill again and onto the bus. Two hours of walking! Yikes, no-one warned me about that. It was a good opportunity to use my 'tramping' boots though- they were fine, it was the person occupying them that didn't like the hills so much!

But the seals were as cute as you would expect them to be. The younger ones were playing in small pools and having play fights on the rocks while the mothers nursed the new babies. Apparantely, the seals mate straight after giving birth and aren't really very protective parents, in the event of danger they will bugger off and leave the big eyed pups gazing up in horror. They also make a good meal for their cousins, the sealions, around the corner, who will grab them by the head and shake until it comes off and it is then swallowed whole. The sealions bring back up all the stuff they can't digest later. They are protected by law at the moment though some people want to start hunting them again and there is talk of future culls if the breeding programme gets too successful.

Round the corner we saw yellow-eyed penguins. Also very cute. Small birds with yellow feathers around the eyes, they are very romantic. They mate for life and the first one home in the evening will wait for their mate to return. Sometimes they will come down the beach to meet them or pick up some grass or twigs to give as a present. They are endangered because their nests are in a perfect place for the stoats, weasels and cats to get into. Also the sheep sometimes tread on them without realising. Before man came to New Zealand there weren't any land mammals here and the birds and reptiles have evolved accordingly. They also make a good meal for the sealions who ignore them coming up the beach until it is hunting time at night.

The sealions are big. They laze around on the beach all day before heading into the water in the evening. There are very few females in the colony and we interrupted a bit of romancing which lead to the male chasing us away.

All in all it was a very interesting day which offered a lot more than just bird watching. The two guides, Sean and Sean, were informative fellas who are actively involved in all the conservation programmes that they were telling us about. And after all that exercise, I slept well that night.

And indeed, much of the next day on the bus on the way to Lake Tekapo. There wasn't a lot there but it was a compulsary stop so we stopped. The hostel was great and right next to the lake with huge windows to make the most of the scenery. There is a church there that our guide told us was the most photographed church in the World- a very bold claim which I believe won't stand up to any kind of enquiry at all. It is pretty though and made of the local stone. At the altar end of it there is a big window which opens onto the lake. It was a very beautiful area and the hostel was a good place to relax with some red wine and the two channels available on the TV.

Next day we hit Christchurch again. Did some shopping and went to a Maori cultural show in the evening. It was pretty cool. Didn't actually learn much about Maori culture but saw some dancing and some traditional style houses before being taken into the wildlife park. Where I saw more kiwis and this time they weren't behind glass. Still not allowed to touch them or take photos but got really close and even saw some kiwi shagging- kiwis, the birds, not Kiwis, the people- action which was a bit of a shock!

After the show I took my new mate out for Korean dinner and introduced her to the delights of bi bim bab and heated floors.

Up early the next day and onto another bus, this time to Kaikoura. It is wonderful here, snow capped mountains lining the shore. Yesterday I went on a sperm whale watching trip and got very seasick. As did everyone else on the boat though I can't help thinking that the voice of the guy narrating the tour might have been part of the reason. He did the whole tour as if he was reading the football results, his voice went up and down and he spoke sooooooo slowly. The boat was not as big as the one that I went humpback whale watching on in Hervey Bay but it went much faster. Which meant that we had to stay inside while the boat was moving and all file out when we stopped near a whale. The bundle back into the cabin when it dove back into the water.

Sperm whales are not as entertaining as humpback whales, there was none of that prancing around and showing off that I saw in Oz. They come up the surface to expell all the stale air through their blowholes, digest their food and take in new air before heading back down to the canyon at the edge of the continental shelf to hunt giant squid. Only the males come to Kaikoura as it is too cold for the ladies. In days past, the whalers would catch the males and open up their heads to get to the vast reserve of oil in there. For some reason, they thought that this oil was sperm- hence the name- and by the time they hunted females and found that they had the same oil, the name had stuck. They are massive though. And the rainbows created by the spurts from their blowholes were very pretty. Mostly we just saw around the blowholes and then their tails as they flicked them up in the air on their way back down to feed.

It was pretty awesome, though expensive, and no-one complained when it was time to head back as we were all a little sick and fed up of the voice of the narrator.

Last night I just chilled out and watched movies. I have planned to stay here for three days simply to get off the bus for a while.

I have been away for three months today. It feels much longer, when I think of all I have done and seen, I find it hard to imagine that I have fitted it all into three months- whenever did I have time to nap? Two months left until I return to Blighty and have to find work- best not to think about it really.