March 26th – April 1st – Christchurch NZ….feels like home!
Lucy says...........
Greg is getting quite good with his “headlines” isn’t he?
Feeling sore from playing soft ball and an invitation to come to Glenorchy School anytime, we left Middlemarch.
We had a dilemma, we have to change our plane tickets in Christchurch, also want to go to Mount Cook, opposite directions!! Which way to go? The weather forecast was cloud & rain for Mt. Cook, so it had to be Christchurch.
Journeyed up the coast and stopped at the Moeraki Boulders, these are large spherical boulders sitting on the beach. I have been here before, but again, like everything else they are quite different. I thought there were lots more of them and the sea covered them, (Greg has since suggested that I might have been there at high tide! Oh, didn’t think of that!! Thick or what??)
Found a place, Katiki Point, that had a hide just above the beach and stayed for ages (mainly because it was freezing outside, no, not really) watching the seals lolloping across the beach and playing in the sea. It was supposed to be the main hide-out of the Blue Penguins, the biggest colony in NZ, but we only saw 2, so either they are in danger of extinction or they were swimming out to sea somewhere!!
Stayed the night off the main highway by the beach, with the noise of the waves in one ear and the state highway 1 in the other.
It was further to Christchurch than we thought, got there the following evening and stayed at an expensive campsite, when I asked how much the site would be he said $46, Wow I said, that’s expensive, straight away he changed it and said, for you I could do it for $36, (was he a kitchen or double glazing salesman in a former life or perhaps of Indian descent!!??) Spent the evening with our fingers in our ears as the freight railway line was the other side of the hedge!! Fortunately the trains stopped between 11pm and 5.30 am!
Into Christchurch the next day to find the Qantas (didn’t realise that Qantas didn’t have a U after the Q) office we had been told was here, wasn’t! So went to the airport to see if we could change our tickets. The Qantas ticket clerk said we could but in the middle of sorting it out her computer went dead! So we have to do it over the ‘phone.
Mission now accomplished we leave NZ 29.7.07 and fly to Sydney.
That evening we went for a walk down the road to see if we could find a bottle shop for a crate of cold beer. On coming out of the bottle shop Greg was lured into a bar next door and we ended up having dinner there. Rib eye steak, chips, salad, fried eggs, a huge plateful for $6.50 (approx 2.75 pounds!!)
We decided that as we had been blasted recently by the icy winds from the Antarctic we would check out the Antarctic Centre, a museum thing all about it. It was brilliant, we were in there for about 3 hours, I could have stayed much longer. The best bits for A & R were firstly the “Snow room”, a room with snow in it! You had to enter through 2 lots of doors and put on rubberised overshoes and parkas, the temperature inside was -5 oC (if anyone knows how to do degrees C with the o up in the air, on the computer please email me fordgp@googlemail.com) Inside there was an igloo, a storm tent and Rowena’s favourite, a slide made out of huge ice blocks that she spent practically all the time we were in there sliding down. Every so often they simulated a storm with the wind dropping the temperature to -25oC. IT WAS FREEZING!! We put 2 parkas on the next time we went in!!
They have a penguin pool with Blue Penguins, much smaller than the Yellow eyed ones we saw the other day, they are rescue penguins. We watched them being fed.
There was a huge amount of information there about the Antarctic, lots of things that I hadn’t realised, eg, It rarely snows, most storms are wind storms. There was a fantastic film documentary made, I should think in the 1970’s, about over wintering at Scott Base, all the chaps had long hair and beards (reminded me some what of Greg!) and huge framed glasses!
I made a pact with Greg, if he let me go to the Christchurch craft market, I would go to the Air Force Museum with him!!
Alistair and Rowena came to the market with me and we had a good poke around, Alistair is very interested in all things Maori, and bought himself a greenstone necklace in the shape of a Maori club (which he tells me is used to club Mutton Birds, to eat!) this is to add to his other one in the shape of a Maori fish hook, which dragged the south island out of the sea in Maori legend.(it means courage) He avidly reads all the Maori legends at DOC offices, bookshops, and libraries. And we also got some sheep wool to do some felting. Finished products may be sent to particular people……!!
Found a food alley with lots of stalls selling ethnic food, had scrummy lunch of falafel, beef and chicken kebabs and Alistair had a fried dough pizza.
Then to Air Force museum which was actually quite interesting, WWI &WWII from the NZ perspective. Home front NZ style. There were also 3 flight simulators; even I had a go on them!!
Moved on up the coast a bit, as the weather is really lovely. Children went in the sea; I got bitten by sandflies for the first time in ages, found a nice little site next to the beach.
Alistair has discovered watercolours he was given some w/c pencils and a pad for Christmas or birthday by I think Catherine, thanks. He spends a lot of time finding things to paint..!
Greg is getting quite good with his “headlines” isn’t he?
Feeling sore from playing soft ball and an invitation to come to Glenorchy School anytime, we left Middlemarch.
We had a dilemma, we have to change our plane tickets in Christchurch, also want to go to Mount Cook, opposite directions!! Which way to go? The weather forecast was cloud & rain for Mt. Cook, so it had to be Christchurch.
Journeyed up the coast and stopped at the Moeraki Boulders, these are large spherical boulders sitting on the beach. I have been here before, but again, like everything else they are quite different. I thought there were lots more of them and the sea covered them, (Greg has since suggested that I might have been there at high tide! Oh, didn’t think of that!! Thick or what??)
Found a place, Katiki Point, that had a hide just above the beach and stayed for ages (mainly because it was freezing outside, no, not really) watching the seals lolloping across the beach and playing in the sea. It was supposed to be the main hide-out of the Blue Penguins, the biggest colony in NZ, but we only saw 2, so either they are in danger of extinction or they were swimming out to sea somewhere!!
Stayed the night off the main highway by the beach, with the noise of the waves in one ear and the state highway 1 in the other.
It was further to Christchurch than we thought, got there the following evening and stayed at an expensive campsite, when I asked how much the site would be he said $46, Wow I said, that’s expensive, straight away he changed it and said, for you I could do it for $36, (was he a kitchen or double glazing salesman in a former life or perhaps of Indian descent!!??) Spent the evening with our fingers in our ears as the freight railway line was the other side of the hedge!! Fortunately the trains stopped between 11pm and 5.30 am!
Into Christchurch the next day to find the Qantas (didn’t realise that Qantas didn’t have a U after the Q) office we had been told was here, wasn’t! So went to the airport to see if we could change our tickets. The Qantas ticket clerk said we could but in the middle of sorting it out her computer went dead! So we have to do it over the ‘phone.
Mission now accomplished we leave NZ 29.7.07 and fly to Sydney.
That evening we went for a walk down the road to see if we could find a bottle shop for a crate of cold beer. On coming out of the bottle shop Greg was lured into a bar next door and we ended up having dinner there. Rib eye steak, chips, salad, fried eggs, a huge plateful for $6.50 (approx 2.75 pounds!!)
We decided that as we had been blasted recently by the icy winds from the Antarctic we would check out the Antarctic Centre, a museum thing all about it. It was brilliant, we were in there for about 3 hours, I could have stayed much longer. The best bits for A & R were firstly the “Snow room”, a room with snow in it! You had to enter through 2 lots of doors and put on rubberised overshoes and parkas, the temperature inside was -5 oC (if anyone knows how to do degrees C with the o up in the air, on the computer please email me fordgp@googlemail.com) Inside there was an igloo, a storm tent and Rowena’s favourite, a slide made out of huge ice blocks that she spent practically all the time we were in there sliding down. Every so often they simulated a storm with the wind dropping the temperature to -25oC. IT WAS FREEZING!! We put 2 parkas on the next time we went in!!
They have a penguin pool with Blue Penguins, much smaller than the Yellow eyed ones we saw the other day, they are rescue penguins. We watched them being fed.
There was a huge amount of information there about the Antarctic, lots of things that I hadn’t realised, eg, It rarely snows, most storms are wind storms. There was a fantastic film documentary made, I should think in the 1970’s, about over wintering at Scott Base, all the chaps had long hair and beards (reminded me some what of Greg!) and huge framed glasses!
I made a pact with Greg, if he let me go to the Christchurch craft market, I would go to the Air Force Museum with him!!
Alistair and Rowena came to the market with me and we had a good poke around, Alistair is very interested in all things Maori, and bought himself a greenstone necklace in the shape of a Maori club (which he tells me is used to club Mutton Birds, to eat!) this is to add to his other one in the shape of a Maori fish hook, which dragged the south island out of the sea in Maori legend.(it means courage) He avidly reads all the Maori legends at DOC offices, bookshops, and libraries. And we also got some sheep wool to do some felting. Finished products may be sent to particular people……!!
Found a food alley with lots of stalls selling ethnic food, had scrummy lunch of falafel, beef and chicken kebabs and Alistair had a fried dough pizza.
Then to Air Force museum which was actually quite interesting, WWI &WWII from the NZ perspective. Home front NZ style. There were also 3 flight simulators; even I had a go on them!!
Moved on up the coast a bit, as the weather is really lovely. Children went in the sea; I got bitten by sandflies for the first time in ages, found a nice little site next to the beach.
Alistair has discovered watercolours he was given some w/c pencils and a pad for Christmas or birthday by I think Catherine, thanks. He spends a lot of time finding things to paint..!
posted by greg and lucy | 11:26 PM
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