Dunedin and Christchurch

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We arrived in Dunedin- a town with predominantly Scottish heritage- in the late afternoon. It is a typical sea-side town. Our campsite was pretty, with sea-bird murals on all of the buildings. We had intended on going out for a walk, but we were starrting to come down off our paragliding high, and as the adrenaline left our systems we became very sleepy! So it was decided to cook in and watch a DVD (for a change!). The night air was tropical compared with the -8 degrees of Queenstown, so no hot water bottles or heaters were needed. The next morning, we rose to a warm, sunny day, and we planned on driving out to the Otago penninsula to visit some colonies of New Zealand fur seals, blue penguins and albatross. Since the penninsula was not on any city map, we navigated our own way. We stumbled across Lanarch Castle, the only castle in New Zealand, and thought it might be worth checking out, but it was way pricey even just to see the gardens, and we both have seen many a castle in our lifetimes, so we decided against it. We made our way to the Royal Albatross colony, and on the way stopped at a few lookout points to take pictures of Dunedin Bay and the many sea-birds we spotted along the way.

We arrived at the Albatross Colony just in time for the interpretive centre to open- which was very interactive and educational. We walked up to a barrier and had a look at the colony through binoculars. There weren't too many birds, as it was outside breeding season, but we saw a few! We also saw Little Shags (spare the jokes, please) as well as some birds of prey who were circling above us. We had a bite to eat and a cuppa in Red Dwarf before driving off to find the penguins and seals. We found ourselves on the main road back to Dunedin, and didn't see any signposts for the colonies, so we kept driving and parked Red Dwarf in the Octagon (city centre). We went into a cafe to have some lunch and the english girl behind the counter asked us, "Are you Irish? WHAT'S THE CRAIC?!" We tried our best not to throw our eyes up to heaven and just smiled politely. Afterwards we went to the i-site to look for something free/inexpensive to do. We found out that the Public Art Gallery had free entry so we set off to take a look. We entered the gallery and to the right was the film archives, so we sat ourselves in front of a computer and browsed through some of the old footage. We watched a rugby match from the 1950s between the Springboks and a local team who won the match. The commentary was hilarious! We then watched an ad for Franz Josef Glacier walks, which was about 15 minutes long. There were two very pretty ladies who were being guided by a man who was cutting steps into the ice with an axe. The clip also showed The Hut- a place where glacier walkers still go today in the summer months and stay overnight. We tore our way from the computer screens and took a look around the rest of the gallery. There was a huge collection of European Art from the 1500s, as well as some modern paintings which we didn't really get. We left the gallery and walked to the post office to post our Milford Sound postcards. Afterwards, we took a stroll to Dunedin Train Station- the most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere (so of course we added to its popularity by taking photos of it). We headed back to the car and on to the campsite, as we had an early start the following day. We had a long journey to Christchurch, our final destination in New Zealand and we went to bed feeling a bits sad as our days in New Zealand were coming to an end.

We left Dunedin in what we thought was plenty of tine to get to Christchurch. We had to drop Red Dwarf back by 4pm so were were on the road by 10:30am. The journey seemed endless, and, at 3pm, we started to near Christchurch. We hoped to get to our hostel, drop our bags and all our stuff and then get Red Dwarf out to the Spaceship office by 4. Not an easy task! We had trouble finding the hostel, and it took a while for us to get to it even after entering the Christchurch suburbs. We finally got to the hostel at 3:40, we dropped the bags in the hall, and Dave legged it off to drop back the car while I took our stuff up to the room and sorted it out. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out Dave's phone- I must have grabbed it when we were clearing out the car. I hoped he wouldn't need it! Dave's phone rang about 4:30- it was the people from Spaceships looking for their car back. I told them he was definitely on his way and to wait for him. After a while, Pierce, a guy Dave went to school with, rang and arranged to come meet us at our hostel later. Pierce had only been living in Christchurch a week. At about 6:30 Dave arrived back. It had taken him some time to find the offices (I had told him the address of the Spacestation in Christchurch not the offices- woops!) The girls were waiting for him at the office so he handed over the keys, walked for a bit, then caught the bus back to our hostel. We had some left over beer so when Pierce arrived, we sat in the lounge and drank those. Once we had finished, we were pretty hungry so we had a wander around to look for food. We found an Indian restaurant a few blocks down- the staff seemed less than impressed to see us, and when we asked if they were still open, they replied "Yes" in a very defeated tone. What resulted was a very efficient service - they couldn't wait to get rid of us!

So we found ourselves wandering around Christchurch at 11pm looking for a pub. Not easy. On our travels, we saw many empty sites where buildings had been demolished after the earthquake. We saw lots of buildings cordened off with tape, as they were unsafe to enter. It was quite sad. We got to a bar where Pierce's friend was supposed to be but they were closing up. The barmaid kindly rang another bar up the road to see if they were still open but they were closing too. What do three people have to do to get a pint?? She suggested a bar called the Monday Room which was usually open late and was only a few blocks away. So we started to walk in that direction and on the way passed more of the red zone - it was like a ghost town. On our way we passed a building at it sounded like someone was banging on the windows. There was no wind so we figured it must have been a tremor. We got to the bar and were told that they were closing up, the barman explaining that everyone in the bar had left to go home after the tremor a few minutes before. With wine bottles on shelves all around the bar the noise must have been quite loud when the tremor shook the building so the exodus was understandable! He called a taxi for us and let us wait inside the door as it was freezing outside. The taxi driver was all about the tremor - "this land will never stop shaking" he said. We got dropped off at the hostel, said our goodbyes to Pierce and fell into bed, knackered from all the walking. The next morning we got up to the smell of freshly baked bread. We went down to the kitchen and helped ourselves to some homemade bread and jam. I got chatting to an Irish girl from Kildare who said she was planning on leaving Christchurch soon, there's not a lot happening there unfortunately. I gave her the bag of food we had left over as she was staying and working in the hostel. The bus to the airport, organised by the hostel, picked us up at 10:30 and we set off on the next leg of our journey - to Australia.

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Photos

The Supremes
Check out the "Ducks Crossing" sign behind! These ducks hung around outside the car every morning quacking. They always looked for food

Dunedin Train Station
The most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere. Though I managed to chop the top off the tower!

View from the Plane
We flew from Christchurch to Sydney. You can see the Alpsd in the background

The Alps
From the plane