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Published: February 6th 2011
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Art Centre
Former university buildlings (where Jean used to study) Eerst wat verdrietig nieuws dat ook gedeeld moet worden.
Vandaag bracht Jay het verdrietige bericht dat Tante Ini is overleden.
Ook al ben ik ver weg, ik zal er in gedachten bij zijn vrijdag.
Veel sterkte voor iedereen die van haar hield.
Lisa
Christchurch & Driving to Twizel
English (Lisa) 30/1 Christchurch Inner City & Anouschka's Birthday 2.0
We went to the Art Centre of Christchurch today, located in the former university building. It is a really nice, old building (especially for NZ standards) with a court yard. Artists have their own room. Outside, we had lunch on the grass and went to the market stalls were other artists sold their work, many of which was jewelry.
The annual, two week long buskers festival was running. Some amazing musicians were playing all around the city; ranging from a red-headed 50-year old woman playing jazz on the saxophone and singing (incredibly good) to a country duo to some men playing drums and playing guitar (a sound similar to Jesse Cook’s). Not only musicians were out on the street, all other kinds of performers could also be found. On the square in front of
the famous church of Christchurch, a big crowd had gathered around a middle-aged man that was called ‘the half-naked chef’. He was cooking, continuously talking, and looked sort of normal… until he turned around and you could see that beneath his apron he was only wearing hideous red undies. The most funny was an insane Scottish guy doing tricks. On the picture you can see him blowing up a plastic glove on his head. He managed to be constantly entertaining, while all he had was only three tricks. We had a great time strolling around the city watching it all.
That night, Erik- and Jean’s children (all adults though) Dan and Jay with respectively their girlfriend and boyfriend came over for dinner. The oldest son Luke currently just had his second child born in England. Besides being a passionate shopper, Jean is a skilled cook and especially loves baking. For Anouschka’s birthday she made a huge chocolate cake with berries.
31/1 Packing
Erik and Jean reckoned that we would need the whole day to prepare for the Routeburn Track. They were right, we found. They supplied us with all sorts of stuff that we didn’t/couldn’t take with us on
Scottish Guy & Plastic Glove
It popped shortly after this photo was taken the plane, such as pots (called ‘billies’), cutlery, sleeping bags, thermal clothes, etc. What is called ‘hiking’ elsewhere in the world is called ‘tramping’ in New Zealand. Erik is a very experienced tramper and had packing lists already that we could use so we would take exactly the right amount and the right sort of equipment and clothing with us. We have to carry everything we need on the track in our backpacks, so it’s the minimum we’re taking with us. Even the minimum is still quite much, because in the basic huts there’s only running water, bunk beds, and some gas cookers. Everything had to be as light as possible, including our 3 dinners, which was definitely a challenge.
1/2 Driving
We started at Christchruch and ended up at Twizel today. It’s strange not to be driving ourselves any more, but to be sitting in the backseat, not having to do anything but to look out the window. Twizel is a small town erected some years ago as a temporary town to provide housing for the workers building canals and dams. When the canals and dams were finished, the people refused to leave it and Twizel continued to
exist. Nowadays, the town community is made up of some permanent residents and also many people with their holiday home over there.
During the drive we stopped at Geraldine for some coffee, the beautiful lake Lake Tekapo for lunch and on many viewpoints along the way. We also did a short walk to see Mt Cook, the highest mountain of New Zealand. Mt Cook was used as a training location by Edmund Hillary, the first man to successfully climb the Mt Everest.
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Renske
non-member comment
Super schattige foto!!