Blogs from Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 149

A bright sunny morning, a change from yesterday's rain. Drove all the way to Christchurch stopping to look at a historic church and Collie dog statue at Lake Tekapo. Took some very long, straight, boring back roads through the Canterbury Plains to Christchurch, arriving at 9pm at City Oasis Backpackers, a nice motel-style place with fancy en-suite dorm rooms with sofa's and kitchens. Truely some excellent accommodation in New Zealand.... read more

so, i'm truncating the entries for my last few days in new zealand.... dunedin: south of christchurch by about 3 hours. my recovery day from stewart island included a speights ale house tour and a cadbury chocolate factory tour. i don't like beer, but i decided i had to try the variety as a tasting was included in the tour. this i will label as 'michelle's part of the day' because she LOVES beer. she was all smiles the entire hour....she even smiled as we entered the stinky hopps (we don't know if there's 1 or 2 p's in hops) room. the biggest grins though were while trying her hand at pouring beer from an actual bar tap. by the time the tasting was over we'd had about 3 glasses of beer between us....feeling rather 'happy' ... read more

After 25 fun-filled hours on the plane we arrived safely yesterday!! Weather here is FANTASTIC (26 and sunny!) and Christchurch is my new favourite city! We bummed around town yesterday and did a little shopping. We're off to rent our spaceship this morning (http://www.spaceships.tv) and begin our road trip. We're first headed north to the Abel Tasman National Park, for some hiking and hopefully some sea kayaking.......cheers! - Michelle ... read more

Brian Gonci had plans to visit us in NZ before we even arrived. One night while we were packing boxes in NH, he called excited about his purchase of a ticket in February. At the time February seemed a world away. We thought there would be time for us to settle into our meagre accommodations, but little did we know how quickly time would pass. Brian arrived on Monday the 19th of February. This day marked just one week into Bryan’s new job, and the beginning of five days of “holiday” leave. It was a well deserved (but not earned) break after a long work week. Our ambitions over the next weeks were to attain surfing legend status, become aspiring photographers of nature, and climb and cycle great distances over mountains. All we needed was a ... read more

As Chief Inspector Barnaby sat sipping a cool refreshing Chardonnay at the close of a long, hot mid-summers day, Sgt Troy came dashing through the patio doors alerting..."Sir, you'd best come along with me to the village green, there's been at least 4 seperate, but completely related, killings in Upper Middle Witchellton!!!!!!". .......Phew, sorry about that - for a moment we could have sworn we were back at home watching an episode of Midsommer Murders. It's just that Christchurch looks exactly like that. Check the photos if you don't believe us. Also kinda reminds us of that song we sang as kids ... 'What do you do if you're bursting for the loo in an Engish Country, Gaaarden? Pull down your pants and suffocate the ants, in an English Country, Gaaarden'. You know the one, we're ... read more