We spent the most time of our trip in the areas surrounding Christchurch, which is a moderate-sized city. (By the way, the population of all of New Zealand is about the same as LA: 4 million.) Our first couple days were spent wandering through Christchurch with a stop over in Littleton (a small bay town with a very good ice cream place). We made it to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, which was perhaps more like a zoo than a reserve. That said, we both found it to be better than the Kiwi House in downtown Christchurch for viewing kiwis and they also had a variety of animals. The wallabies weren't caged separately from visitors, and they also were not afraid of people.

From Christchurch, Meenal and I stopped over to Akaroa (ah-kah-row-ah, not ah-car-oh-ah, which was my first guess) for a night and took a guided tour at the Pohatu Marine Reserve where we were able to see wild penguins.

Kaikoura is a small town a couple hours north of Christchurch. Krista, Meenal, and I stopped through twice. We had reservations for whale watching on our first day through, which is the primary draw of Kaikoura, however, the seas were a bit rough so we postponed. Instead we took a (short) cave tour. On our second run through Kaikoura, Krista and Meenal braved the seas for the whale watching. Krista: "It was amazing but I'm never doing that again."

On our way to the Kepler Track, we stopped at a wildlife refuge near the Remarkables (the mountains in the background).

We got lucky and our one day in Milford Sound -- known both for its beauty and its regular rain -- was amazing. Of course, this was after our 4 days on the Kepler Track, meaning we were also exhausted. I could barely walk.