Excuse me, please don’t throw snowballs in here

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Hi all - tar V much for all your lovely comments on the last blog. It was dead exciting logging in and seeing that there were some extra messages there. The home page just tells us that there are un-reviewed messages, so then we have a flutter of anticipation while we wait to see who has been sending us little love notes! Good also to see what you were up to while reading our last update. Our personal favourite on this occasion has to be Morvern - what a super high class career girly you are - reading our blog on the train on your posho laptop! Bet everyone who got on at Falkirk was looking at you thinking you are a top executive - but we all know that really you work on the bin lorries. Har har! This is a bigger than normal Blog incidentally - so if you are planning on reading it all (everyone but Danny) then we suggest you get a cup of tea in first, or at least make a toilet trip.

Believe it or not, we’ve actually got off our lazy asseees for a change, and managed to squeeze in quite a lot during this last week. We’ve had to really because the other option was to hang around Christchurch bored out of our faces waiting for the money transfer to get our paws on our flamin’ campervan (Beryl). We won’t go on anymore about how much of an annoyance the whole process was - but we’d like to say a big fat THANKYOU! to Shaz’s sister and brother in law for helping us get things moving. We definitely owe some bottles of wine for the help you gave us - and we’re sorry you were accused of money laundering at the Bellshill branch - we will definitely complain on our return. Anyway, we now have the van (picked her up on Saturday lunchtime) and so far things are going well. However, before we embark on our Beryl tales, let us firstly fill you in on some of the things we did in the week in between leaving Nelson and collecting Beryl.

GREYMOUTH
Well, we headed out last Monday morning (27th Feb), and we drove Southwest along Highway number 6 through some splendid autumn painted mountainous landscapes towards the coastline where Greymouth is located. Now New Zealand calls its roads ‘highways’ but that’s a bit of a leap in terms of realistic naming. These main connection roads between major towns in the South Island are more like super-twisty-turny versions of the less well developed parts of the A1 in the UK, ie; two way single carriageways. The good thing about this though, is that you can’t drive too fast and as such you end up being able to take in more of the delightful vistas along the way. Lurvely. Arriving in Greymouth some 5 hours into our journey, the weather was unfortunately cold, dank, overcast, miserable and foggy. Not to worry though - we still headed out for a bit of a jaunt around town, but after half an hour realized that there was now’t much to hold our attention here - so we just had a quiet night in our mediocre hostel with our books, and chomped our way through some decent steak and chips in the local Irish Bar. Enough said about Greymouth - Its grey, and it’s located at a river mouth, and we won’t be stopping here again in Beryl when we come back through this way at the end of the month.

SHANTYTOWN
About 15 mins drive south of the ‘big grey mouth’ is a working museum called ‘Shantytown’ which we visited on the way back across country to Christchurch. Shantytown is basically a recreation of an 1860s gold mining town, set up with a main street featuring a Fire Station, Saloon, Mill, Jewellers, Hospital, Freemasons hall, Bank (don’t mention banks) and various other bits and bobs reminiscent of ye days of olde. There is also a working steam train which we took a ride on as it was included in the price of the ticket. All in all it was quite interesting and an OK way to spend an hour or two, but it was teaming with tour buses of the Perm Brigade variety, all ‘oohing & aaahing’ over minor points of interest such as stones on the ground, so we didn’t hang about any longer than we needed to. Our favourite thing in Shantytown was a ‘jaunty’ sign on the wall in the hospital building explaining the different types of lunatics that you can get. There was also an Iron Lung machine - and we liked that because we’ve never seen one before.

BACK TO CHRISTCHURCH….again……
Typically, there were no rooms at the Inn. Well, to be more precise there were no double rooms available in any of the decent hostels close to Christchurch town centre. We trekked round for near on three hours trying to find somewhere for a reasonable amount of money, but this was futile. So, hacked off, we decided to blow the budget and book into the Crowne Plaza for the night. That was very nice though as we had a mega room with an enormous TV ( we need an enourmous TV when we get home) and we could access the internet from our laptop in our room. Hurrah! We did downgrade our dinner that evening to Pot Noodles to try and claw back some cash that we’d blown on the room - but do not fear, dear readers, for the tasty-ness of our dinners. Oh no no no, for Pot Noodles in the southern hemisphere are completely and utterly magic. You get brilliant flavoursome sachets of chilli oil and big packs of dehydrated veg plus sometimes you also get proper curry sauce packs too. The other thing is that they are quite big - about twice the size of the ones in the UK - so really we didn’t endure any hardship, we just saved some cash. In fact, we might take to eating more pot noodles so that we can prolong this wonderful trip and spin the money out for as long as we possibly can. At this point I need to make a note to Elly - don’t be giving us into trouble for eating crap - we promise to top up with plenty fresh veggies and fruit etc along the way aswell. So, back to the story: After our night of hotel luxury, we managed to check into the place we’d stayed when we were in Christchurch before - the New Excelsior backpackers - which is a respectable hostel above a decent bar in the town centre with good facilities for cooking etc. There is also a little patio outside with BBQ facilities and sun umbrellas and tables. This is where we set up home for the rest of the week.

We had from the Wed till the Sat lunchtime to kill, so we decided to see some sights & take some drives about the Region. First stop was……..

AKAROA
Lovely little town on the Bank’s peninsula, about 1 hour’s drive from Christchurch through rolling green fields and low lying jagged mountainsides. Akaroa (translating as ‘Long Harbour’ in Maori speak) was originally a French settlement and the evidence of this is everywhere you go here. The sweet little cafes patisseries & bistros, and even the street names (Rue this & Rue that), it’s entirely charming. On a sunny day it would be picture perfect with its lovely churches and lawns - there’s even a Croquet Club. You can go on boat trips here to swim with dolphins too - and there are quite a few companies set up to accommodate this. Needless to say, we didn’t go swimming with any dolphins, however we did have some exquisite carrot cake and coffee in Ma Masion café. We took some photos here but we were disappointed because it was quite a dreary day and they turned out to be a tad on the grimbo side. Duh! We’ve stuck them on anyway to try and give an impression of the lovely town that it is.

ANTARCTIC EXPERIENCE
Don’t worry - we didn’t take a flight to Antarctica, much as we’d love to, however we did visit the International Antarctic Centre to learn about all things ICY. As I write - it’s just occurred to me that many of the things we do end up being a bit like school trips. Not that it matters, just that at home most people without kids probably wouldn’t go and see a lot of the type of things that we tend to have done since we’ve been away. If the weather isn’t good, then the obvious choice is to take in a gallery or a museum, and now that I come to think about it we have seen and done a lot of this. Anyways……. The Antarctic centre was really pretty cool…. in more ways than one. It’s located next to the airport in Christchurch, right across the road from where the American Antarctic Programme offices are based. The major feature of the centre is that it has an Ice Room which you can go into and experience a temperature of minus 5 degrees celcius. Big wow, eh? Well, to be honest that’s not any colder than a windy day on Princes Street, is it? However you can also have a go at sliding down an ice chute (and get your backside soaked in the process) and sit atop a snow mobile for a photo opportunity. While we were in the room we experienced a simulated Winter snow storm which strangely enough felt exactly like it does in Glasgow when you come out of a pub on Sausageroll Street and can’t get a taxi home. We were gutted that we weren’t allowed to have a snowball fight, however we did get to crawl about in an igloo, and take a peek into a typical Antarctic tent, which to our minds looked like a big triangular ghost - see photo for evidence. Our entry ticket got us a go on one of the vehicles which are used in the Antarctic for real - a Hagglund - which is an all terrain amphibian vehicle. It was excellent - and pretty rough going. You are not allowed on though if you have back problems, leg problems, are preggers, suffer from any respiratory ailments or don’t think you’d be able to get out in under 10 seconds in an emergency - all that kind of stuff. To us it felt a bit like the Waltzers - only without the gyppo guys hanging round with fags poking out one corner of their mouths scaring the young lasses.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE PUB
We were literally about 2 mins from the door of our hostel one night on the way home after a few drinks and a KFC (again, soz Elly!), and Alan spie’d out the corner of his eye a Brazilian Bar. He said ‘One for the road?’, and even though we had already completed our journey for the night, Shaz conceded that this would do nicely. Once in the place we realized that it had just opened its doors for trade, and we were one of the first sets of customers. It was a cocktail bar and we ordered Mohitos and Cosmopolitans - just to help establish the purpose of the place y’know, and promptly got chatting to the bar staff and a couple of ‘would be’ punters. Turns out the punters were a couple of Russian lads who had just launched a new brand of vodka in NZ called Capitol Vodka. So the next thing you know we’re having free samples brought to us, and the even further next thing you know is that it’s closing time some 3 hours later! Where has the time gone? Down the bottom of a vodka glass, that’s where. The lads were sound - Dimitri and Alex - and we bought a bottle of their vodka absynthe (WHY???) to take home with us. So if the guys are reading this - then we wish them well with their venture - the drinks are nice and we can vouch the absynthe doesn’t give too bad a hangover as it’s not got any belladonna in it (apparently).


Well, that’s really all that we can be bothered typing tonight, and you guys are all probably bored to tears by now so we will do a nash off. We’ll try to do another blog update over the next few days as we’re starting to lag behind again and then it gets to be a pain in the neck to cram everything in.

So take care till we next liaise……. Au revoir!
Alan & Shaz. xxxxxx

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Photos

Ghost tent eats Alan's head.
Just thought - it also looks a bit like Wizbit.

Lunatics
We absolutely love how the heading is in 'sing song' writing.

Eggs on snow mobile
By the way - we havent bought matching jackets - they give you these to wear at the Antarctic centre. We're not that much of a pair of freaks!!!!

Shaz gets on the steam train
In her new Blondie T shirt which she bought in Tasmania and never has off her back

Artist statue, Akaroa
At first we thought this was one of those people who paint htemselves and then just stand or sit really realy still for ages, expecting passers by to give them money. Normally they'd be painted gold or silver, but it turns out this is a real statue.

This is Alan doing an impression of Stevie Wonder
for reasons only known to himself while we were in the Hagglund.

Idiot feeding, yes FEEDING seagulls.
Why would anyone want to EVER?

Rue Jolie, Akaroa
But where is Brad?

Comments

[Gaz]

Me and the rest of the readers are wondering what you mean by "jaunty" on the 'Lunatics' sign. To all of us, it looks pretty straight and informative. You couldn't be suffering from Alcoholic Mania, item number 7 on the list, could you? :) (tee hee pals!)