"Munted"

---

Leaving Queenstown behind us, we are now heading north back up the south island and our next stop was Lake Tekapo. Our first break of the day was at a supermarket, where the driver encouraged us to buy food for the next couple of days, as we were off to 'wup-wup' (aka the middle of nowhere). We also stopped off at a Salmon Farm - not sure why, but the Japanese tourists did seem to enjoy feeding the fish! - where we splashed out on some salmon fillets for our dinner. Our final breaks on the day's bus journey were Twizel (gateway to Mt Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand) and then lake Pukaki for views across to Mt Cook.

Lake Tekapo is renowned for star gazing, as it's in the middle of nowhere, with no street light disturbance and I guess is also in New Zealand, which is the middle of nowhere. The closest mountain to the town (Mount John) has an observatory on the summit and there were star gazing tours available, however, we opted for the budget version and tilted our heads back that night, lying on the beach - the sky was really clear, so you could see a fantastic number of stars. Also, the sunset shone amazingly red off the mountains across the lake, which was worth a photo.

Due to limited availabilty of accomodation in Lake Tekapo, we had chosen (been forced) to sleep in a mixed dorm for our couple of nights there. "How bad could it be?" we asked ourselves - the answer is pretty bad. On our first night we shared with one other lady, who was a bit older than us and very friendly when awake, but turned out to be a chronic snorer...when we did finally get to sleep, hours after Mark had clambered into his bunk above Hazel's, only to discover that there was more than one screw missing from the equation and the whole thing moved if one of us rolled over, we were woken by her screaming because she was having a nightmare! Luckily (for her) she left early the next morning before I (Mark) could smother her will a pillow. For our second night we had better luck with another similarly aged couple who managed to keep quiet all night. NO MORE SHARED DORMS PLEASE!

We spent a day in Tekapo walking round the side of the lake and climbing up Mount John. The views were great across the lake, as the water is turqoise due to the glacial waters and ground up limestone. We are doing quite a lot of walking up hills at the moment, as it seems to be a good way to get the best views and take in the dramatic landscapes.

Our next destination was Christchurch. The majority of the journey from Tekapo was across the Canterbury Plains, although it was less impressive than we were hoping. Maybe you need to be in the air to appreciate the scale and patchwork effect of this massive flat farming region. We arrived into the city around midday and checked into Jailhouse. This is a hostel which was originally a Victorian prison, but has since been converted. So we really did stay in a prison cell! It is actually one of the best hostels we have stayed in so far - Mark was incredibly excited by the cleanliness but even more so by the 60cm concrete walls between the rooms, which meant we had the quietest night's sleep of our whole trip! Hazel was most pleased with the kitchen though - they had a full selection of sharpened kitchen knives (we've been trying to chop onions with some really crappy blunt objects) and even new pans 😊

On our first aftenroon, we walked into the middle of Christchurch where the earthquake's aftermath is still very much visible. The CBD is mainly closed, including Cathedral Square where most of the surrounding buildings appear to have been flattened, leaving only the main structure of the Cathedral (minus its spire). As we walked around the CBD, there were many buildings in disrepair - the term they use locally to discribe the city after the earthquake and aftershocks was "munted":

"munted" - adj (1) used to describe severe levels of damage in Christchurch earthquake.
(2) used to avoid offending others by saying f**ked in the context above...
Origin, Christchurch NZ

We were wondering why so much of the city was still cordoned off and derelict, two years after the earthquake, but then started to come across some really impressive restoration/stabilisation efforts. We saw church after church where the tower had pretty much collapsed, but had been saved and propped up on the ground with supports all around it. The spire-less churches did look a bit unusual but it's fantastic that they are going to be pieced back together in their original form.

The council has also made a lot of effort to relocate some of the affected businesses. Many of the shops and cafes have temporarily been relocated into brightly coloured shipping containers in an area called the Re:START Mall. We took a little time to wonder around the "container market" and grab a coffee in a cafe on the roof of one of the containers.

As we walked around the edge of the former CBD, we also read the plans which the residents have helped come up with to re-build their city - it's interesting to see what people want from their ideal city and really great that the council are hoping to put a fair amount of the residents' plans into action. It is a shame we didn't get to see the city in all its previous glory, as we can only imagine how beautiful it was but we're sure it will be worth a visit in a few years time, and that it will be a lovely city once again.

On one of our afternoons in Christchurch, Mark managed to persuade Hazel into a fairly long walk out into the surburbs in search of a place called "Burgers and Beers". Despite the current "no beers for lent" policy, Mark wanted to try the burgers which were supposedly "Christchurch's version of the Queenstown Ferg Burger". Sadly they weren't quite as tasty, but equally filling none the less, and definitely worth the walk!

On our final day in Christchurch, we checked out the botanical gardens and took a local bus to New Brighton beach, to size it up against the original. Unfortunately, it is pretty run down and there are no 2p machines, donut deep fryers or whack-a-moles in sight, but there is a pier.

---

Comments

[Christine]

Mark are you attempting to do a 'Christine' look in this pic?! Think they should have locked you up for crimes against fashion with those shorts and red socks :) All still looks amazing guys...the weather still looks fab.

[HandtheM]

Did you stay here too on your way round? Hazel did warn me of the fasion faux-pas. I was letting my creative side out. Probably best not to do that again, although I have just inVESTED in a vest!