June 19

Breakkie at the Earwakers

(6/19/12)Burke:  So today I was told to blog about food, I don’t know if I should be offended or proud. What I can say thought is that NZ has some of the same foods, but a lot of different ones too. They have Mickey D’s and BK, but most of the cafes serve things like mince pies or sausage rolls. The mince pie is like sausage and gravy inside with a pastry outside. The sausage rolls are pretty self-explanatory, they have sausage and other things like cheese and onion rolled into one delicious food. One meal that’s a twist on words is a NZ Hot Dog with Chips. I know what you think, bun, hot dog, and potato chips, nope. It’s a Corn Dog with French Fries.

 I’ve got a new favorite drink, NZ Powerade, so get this, it’s like regular Powerade, but comes in a cool bottle that has NZ stuff on it. They have one that’s colored all black, it’s the official drink of their national Rugby team, the All Blacks. The potato chip variety too, is different, between Chicken, Bacon, and Hamburger chips there is a wide variety. What really makes it fun is where you can get these things. The Kiwis (shorter name for people from NZ) are really friendly at the cafés and shops. Some of the stuff you can say is locally grown, in the U.S. One of the more experimental things I tried was Whitebait, basically tiny fish that you batter and fry into patties, slimy, but pretty good.  Overall, I can find things that I like to eat, trying things here and there, but overall enjoying myself.

  

Hey this is Josh here.  There is a thing I want to tell you about on the beach at Blenheim. As the others walked along the beach, Dad and I drove the campervan to the playground next to the fire station as we were told where we thought we’d meet up with everyone. It was a cool playground that we played on waiting for the others to catch up. But it turns out that we were at the wrong playground! There was a playground made out of driftwood logs on the beach with lots of swings and climbing structures and stuff like that. People had just gathered the driftwood logs and made a big playground out of it. I especially liked that I found the ‘trampoline’ which was a really bouncy piece of driftwood. 

Before that we had seen a sea cave that had been eroded into the rocks by the waves. There was one really big wave that came onto the little beach. I was the only one standing on the big rock in the middle of the beach and the huge wave came and everyone else had to run while I sat and laughed. Burke got wet up to his knees! I found my new favorite food that I had never tried and never knew in the US… English muffins! 

So after we left Blenheim to go to Christchurch, we stopped at a seal colony, one out of 3 in the area. We hiked about 5 minutes to come to a pool fed by a waterfall. There was about 3 dozen baby seals playing in the water- there were many that came up to you and sniff you but you weren’t allowed to touch them L. I was afraid when one was close and I looked at mom and she took a picture that the seal would bite me, but he didn't. In Kaikoura, we found a funny t-shirt that I will show you a picture of. I also saw tshirts with a lego kiwi and a sheep driving a tractor. Back in Christchurch we dropped off the RV, got a rental car, drove back to our hotel Chardonnay Motor Lodge.  I hope we go to the caddyshack a suped-up indoor mini golf and also go skiing.