New Zealand -Day 1

We left for the airport about 3:00 only to turn around to get Meribeth's passport. The two of us are one forgetful duo! We went through the check in line at Pacific blue airlines and the guy joked with us that we couldn't get through. haha funny... Anyways, the flight was quick and again Meribeth forgot her flight paperwork and our rental car paperwork at the airport so we had to convince customs she was on the same flight as me. We made it through okay and got to the hostel.
The hostel was just a basic hostel so we went to bed for a good start.
Day 1-

We woke up about 9:00 ready to get our rental car at 10. We were in Christchurch and it was a very quaint small town with a small cathedral in the center of town. it was under construction so it was not too cute at the moment. The weather was absolutely freezing! I ran next store to a souveneir shop to purchase a beanie and some gloves. Good purchase! We waited and the car didn't come. So we decided we probably told them 11. Meanwhile Meribeth went to try and track down what company we used so we could give them a call. We couldn't figure it out so we waited and waited. Finally at about 12:30 we found the right company and it turns out our hostel told the company we weren't staying there, so the rental company never came! Talk about annoying. So we were finally on our way. I drove first and we decided to stop at a beach on the way called Amberely beach.
The beach was ugly black filled with rocks. It was freezing cold so we decided to only stay for a minute.
We jumped back in the car and thought it would be a lot of fun to take a scenic route. Well what a mistake that was. For one it's New Zealand, every route is scenic whether it tries to be or not. SEcond, it took us 2 hours out of the way!!
It was nice though with rolling hills covered in every different shade or green you can imagine covered with white specs which as you drive closer turn into sheep. People told us there were sheep here but wow! There are sheep on the road, behind fences, getting sheered, just absolutely everywhere. We also saw a huge farm full of deer which was cool and unusual. WE decided that NEw Zealand was more like California then Australia.
We finally got to Kaikoura and it was just one street. We had dinner at a cute little bar and grill. I had a great vegetable stir fry. After dinner we found a hostel to stay in that was just a building with some rooms thrown in it. We were tired so we pretty much went straight to bed. The next day we were heading to Hamner springs. So until then...