The South Island details

So, here we go, bare with me on this long one.
Thursday: Last day of school, left Waihi at 4:30 and drove the 8 hours to Wellington. There we spent the night in the back of the van in the ferry parking lot.
Friday: We took the 3 hour ferry ride from the North Island to the South Island. The scenery was amazing and the wind was cold! We arrived in Picton and drove further down to Kaikoura. On the way we stopped at an awesome beach for lunch and then saw tons of seals along the rocks. There were tons of seal pups playing around. I loved this little town. The weather was good and we looked around town before camping for the night.
Saturday: We went whale watching! It was soooo cool. We saw two different sperm whales. You can't see much of them, just a bit of their backs and blowhole. When they dive down again, you can see their tale. That was amazing. We also saw some albatross and 200 dusky dolphins. These dolphins are the smallest in the world and were so fun to watch. They would swim right up to the boat and dive and jump all over. We then headed off to Hanmer Springs. We went to the Springs spa and enjoyed a few of the dozen outdoor hot pools. It was nice to do on a cool day. Then we went to a fun maze. We had to find clues in the maze to spell out a little message. From here we drove on to Christchurch where we camped for the night.
Sunday: Easter! We went to church at the Christchurch Cathedral. It was huge and gorgeous. It was cool to see an old church in the middle of town square. Most the shops were closed so we just browsed around town a bit. Then we went to the Antarctic Centre. We saw the blue penguin, the world's smallest. We watched them get fed. That night we stayed with our host parents kids and their family.
Monday: We went up to a cool lookout of town and then to the town centre where we walked around the arts center. It was soooo awesome. It is like 3 blocks of an old campus. There are art stores, theatres, movie theatres, and galleries throughout the whole thing. There are people performing on the streets too. Then we went on the Mount Cook. The drive took about 5 hours to see NZ's tallest mountain. We spent the night in the van at a campground there with the snow covered mountains and a lake all around us.
Tuesday: We did a two hour hike by the mount. It was again a gorgeous site.We headed out and drove to Dunedin. This town was awesome. It is a little bigger than Duluth and had a cool town centre. We stayed in a hostel that night. It was like an old big house and you rent a room for like 20 NZ$ and there are 4 people per room. There was a big kitchen, pool table and tv room. It was nice to sleep in a bed for once instead of a van. We walked to the city at night and went to a piano bar and a few other hangouts. It was really quite in town because it is the holidays so all the students are gone.
Wednesday we went to the Cadbury chocolate factory. You know the cadbury bunny? Yeah, I saw him in real life! haha. It was a cool tour. The place is huge and employs like 600 people. Then we went to the only castle in NZ. That was awesome too. It isn't huge, but it is beautiful. After that we saw the steepest city in the world, and i hiked it. In the evening, it was off to a brewery tour which was also pretty cool. After all of this, we drove to a beach and parked the van on the side of the road to sleep.
Thursday: We got up early in the morning and saw some seals on the rocks by a cool old lighthouse. We could hear all this grunting and realized it was a mother seal and her pups playing in a cove. We then drove to Te Anau and walked around town and stayed in a great holiday park for the night. It had fireplaces and was log-cabin style. Which was nice and warm since it was really cold outside. We even watched Grey's Anatomy in the TV lounge, before climbing into our cold van again for the night.
Friday: We went on a cruise through Milfrod Sound! It was the most spectacular thing ever! The drive took about 2 hours. Te Anau is the closest town. The whole Fiordland Park is all natural and huge! The are steep green cliffs and mountains everywhere. The cruise was a 3 hour boat tour from the beginning of the Sound to the Tasman Sea. It was freezing, even snowed and hailed, but while we were on the boat the sun was shining and everything was beautiful! We even saw seals and a pod of bottlenose dolphins. Last night we drove into Queenstown. We have taken it easy here so far, since tomorrow is a big day! We are skydiving! I will definitely update after all that excitement. Well that is all for now! More later if I survive!