Tuesday Jan. 19, 2010 - Westport

It is moving day again. The days sure fly by when you are having fun. The trip to Westport was not all that eventful. There were lots of green country sides, orange construction signs, and one lane bridges.

We did stop at Murchison to pick up some things. We went to the information centre to ask about jet boating. After we signed up and paid they informed us that we would have to cross a swing bridge to get to the boating. It turns out that The Buller Gorge Swingbridge is the longest swingbridge 110m in NZ and I had to cross it. So off we went. Thank goodness there wasn't anyone coming from the other side. Later we saw lots of people passing each other on the bridge. It was a trek to the jet boat wharf. The last little bit was hard for me to negotiate. Soon we were on the boat. Charles and I were in the back. We had never been there before so it was fun. You sure slide around on the spins. We went up and down through some small rapids which had us bouncing up and down. It was great. We saw where the earthquake of 1929 displaced the land. http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/kids/nzdisasters/EQMurchison1929.asp and there were some waterfalls. After the boating was finished we went back over the bridge. We had to wait a while for the bridge to clear. We did set out with one man on the bridge who we had to pass. Our boat captain went across before us and stopped people from coming across until we were on the other side. For this I was very thankful. We ate lunch here.

We are staying in a four bedroom holiday home in Westport. It is large and roomy.

The day ended on a very tranquil note as we went to see the seal colony. There were lots of young pups having a great time on the rocks. We got some great movies and pictures. Charles and I were the only people there for a long time. One larger seal was scratching its back on a rock. This went on for about 5 minutes. She was so funny to watch. It was so quiet here. You could hear the seals making noises. We spent about an hour there. It was just so much fun to watch the seals.