Blogs from Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 17

Goodbye NewZealand. The time has come to say goodbye to this extraordinarily beautiful island. It had to end some time. I had the most wonderful 10 days here. Being an English speaking country made it all that more easier and enjoyable as you could talk to locals and understand the commentaries much better. I was very skeptical about going on a tour with Haka Tours as it was targeting a younger group, below 30s and was a bit afraid that I would be left out while the others went on bungy jumping, para gliding and freefall jumps. The alternative was to tour with older people probably Chinese or Japanese. That is another thing you notice, the number of Chinese tourists. With the increasing number of middle class what happened with Japan in the 70s and 80s ... read more

It’s a bit of a pain getting anywhere from Hokitika. For Samoa I have to take a flight to Christchurch, then another flight to Auckland, and then another flight from there to Samoa. Same in reverse for the return. Seeing I had to go through Christchurch and Auckland anyway I figured I may as well spend a couple of days in each to get in some extra birding. There aren’t really any birds in Hokitika. Up until now, in May, I had seen only 35 species for the whole year! So any chance I can get!! Funnily enough, bird number 36 was at the Hokitika airport. It is just a very tiny airport of course because there’s only one plane and it only goes one place (Christchurch), and the plane itself is only about the size ... read more

Proc jsem se pro cestu na Zeland rozhodl jsem uz zminil v clanku o Australii. Moniku jsem sice nepotkal, ale alespon mi dala tipy na to, kam vyrazit. Po zvazeni kam se mam sanci realne dostat, jsem ten tyden rozkouskoval po dvou dnech a vysledna podoba Zelandu tedy byla ta, ze dorazim v noci do Christchurch, stravim tam den a další rano se presunu do Wellingtonu, odkud preletim do Queenstownu a potom zpet do Christchurch, tam noc a dopoledne domu. Dluzno rict ze ty pozemni presuny nebyly uplne nejidealnejsi, protože Christchurch – Wellington znamenalo 5 hodin busem a 3 hodiny trajektem a Queenstown – Christchurch plnych 8 hodin v busu. Z nejakyho divnyho duvodu byly vzdycky na data co jsem potreboval letenky drahy, oproti tomu na bus z Queenstownu jsem chytil akci, takze za 30NZD jsem ... read more

Once again we arrived to our new location with rain. We arrived at Le Petite Inn around 10pm - Al was hungry and thought about ordering in a pizza, but the Inn keeper said there was nothing open at 10pm on a Sunday night -- as if he were crazy! It was interesting getting to the inn - we rented a car - it is not easy to drive on the opposite side of the road for the 1st time when it's dark and rainy. He did very well, but its a really good thing we had GPS to get us there! The next morning started out very interesting. We headed off to akaroa and were using the GPS directions as we started to climb the hills outside of Christchurch...only to find that the mountain pass ... read more

The Fergburger sat heavy in my stomach all night and I was still full when I woke up! I'd woken up a couple of times in the night and had a good laugh when I saw the Irish boy in my room still fully dressed lying sideways on the bunk somehow fast asleep! I guess he had a good Paddy's day. The bus ride to Christchurch was a long one but as the weather was still being Mr Miserable it was better to be inside than out! We drove through the rolling hills of the Lindis Pass and had lunch at Lake Tekapo. We arrived into Christchurch later that afternoon; the city centre is still a disaster zone, but not having seen it before the earthquake means its ... read more