At last a blog!

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At last a blog!

Hola to our all our very patient readers!

Well what can we say it has been a while! Hopefully the blogs will become more frequent again as we are on the road!

In this blog we will tell you about our trips to Christchurch, Wellington and any big events that have happened in Auckland.

Christchurch was our first trip out of Auckland back in September. We decided to go for a few nights for Richards birthday. The flight down was good although we strongly believe that Air New Zealand cabin crew should have a bit more training in the art of being nice to passengers! We discovered this when Richard was asked if he wanted lollies (sweets to you folks) or chips, of the crisp variety, as his snack. He politely replied chips to which the flight attendant responded by handing him lollies. That was not the problem, the problem was when Richard dared to ask her to exchange them for his original order you would have thought he had just spit in her face with the way she went about handing him the crisps. Anyhow we just giggled at that determined not to be annoyed. Upon landing we exited the tiny airport to grab a taxi, you are probably thinking come on guys we don’t need to know everything, well the reason we are telling you this is that as always the simplest tasks for us are not simple. The taxi driver in his haste to say goodbye to his fellow taxi driver friends decided to pull out without checking the road ahead and carried on with his farewells. This would not have been a problem had there not being a zebra crossing next to the rank on which a guy was happily crossing, that was until our taxi driver nudged him. I say nudged because luckily the driver had decided to check the road ahead and stopped before mowing the poor guy down. After a few bonnet punches and choice words we carried on the ride into town.

The first day there we decided to book all our trips and activities. We decided on golf, horse riding, mountain biking and a Lord of the Rings tour.

Golf was first, we might stress it wasn’t a game of golf but a trip out to a driving range. We also have to tell you that Christchurch had been enjoying a fine spell of warm sunny clear days, that was until we turned up and it became cold and wet. Undeterred by this we still headed out to the range, big mistake. We hopped on the bus for about twenty minutes thinking that when we arrived it would be a short walk to the range….oh no the range was a good twenty minute walk from the bus stop. The rain came down, the wind turned nasty and our moods soured a wee bit, this wasn’t helped when upon arriving at the golf club looking like drowned rats the staff all laughed at us. After the staff had finished laughing at us they kindly showed us how the ball machine worked, something Viks was extremely excited about, oh how the simplest things please some people! The first ball was teed up and ready to go and to say it took Viks about five minutes to actually make contact with the ball is rather lenient by the time keeper, and then after all that it went about five metres from the tee! Richard was much better and struck every ball like a budding Tiger Woods. The excitement really cranked up when the armour and mesh plated ball collecting buggy came out and the aim of the game became to hit that! After about an hour we were all out of balls

The next activity was horse riding, and as you might remember Viks is not the most confident horse rider considering the last time she attempted it was in Africa where she mounted the horse only to promptly climb back off the other side. This time didn’t seem to be fairing any better, as the tears almost started rolling again, but with the strict promise that the tour guide would guide the horse, almost like a donkey on Scarborough beach, Viks agreed to go on the trek. It was a lovely ride by the river, stopping for a few pictures and also more than a few toilet breaks by the horses. With a canter towards the end we finished up the horse riding tired and saddle sore, which was perfect preparation for our next activity.

The afternoon outing was mountain biking. We headed up the mountain on the gondola (cable car) to the top of a mountain overlooking Lyttleton Harbour, Pegasus Bay, Banks Peninsula and Lake Ellersmere. We had a look around the museum and took a few pictures before heading off to find the mountain bike guy. After a quick chat about the route we would take we headed off on the scenic route. After Viks making Richard pick the most suitable trousers for bike riding she came a cropper herself when within the first five minutes her trousers caught in the pedal and ripped almost to the knee. With what was left her trousers tucked in her socks we set off the ride. It was a nice ride down the side of the mountain taking in the scenery of cows, sheep, goats and an overturned car in the middle of a steep valley. After a ride through the town and a nice scenic stretch along the coast, we arrived at the drop off point for the bikes, ending our activities for the day and allowing ourselves a well earned rest.

The next and final adventure was the big trip out to Mount Sunday which for those of you that don’t know is Edoras from the Lord of the Rings films. This day was mainly for Richards benefit as Viks really didn’t like the films, apart from Golum, and spent the entire six hours of film declaring ‘my god it is just a ring’. The day started early with a long drive out to Mount Sunday stopping on the way to take pictures of gorgeous glacier rivers. When we arrived at there we had a nice picnic lunch before going off road to the base of the mountain. This was awesome going through the streams and up the side of the mountain passed some quite evil looking cows. We had to walk the last part carrying swords, staffs and axes. The view was awesome and we took some amazing pictures, one of which was Viks posing as Miranda Otto in the exact place she stood in the film. After all the photos had been taken we headed back to Christchurch. We have to say the scenery was some of the best we have ever seen.

The next trip we took was to Wellington at Christmas. We flew with Qantas this time just so that we could get the correct snack. The first day was spent walking for hours in the blistering heat looking for the British Consulate so that Viks could renew her passport ready for the US of A. Wellington is gorgeous; it is much easier on the eye than Auckland. In the afternoon we headed up to the Botanic Gardens on the cable car, it looks more like a tram than a cable car though. The view from the Gardens is spectacular back over the harbour and city. We decided we would take a nice walk to the bottom. This was a very long but scenic walk, taking in the beautiful plants, the old English house and the very big duck pond.

The next day out was to the Te Papa Tongerewa (Museum of New Zealand). This is an awesome free museum where we got to look at Maori history, the earth and its tectonic plates and best of all the colossal squid which was incredible. The museum was so big that we had to go back the next day. We decided to go on the two 3D rides, this would have been good if we weren’t flying out a couple of hours after. After getting off the rides feeling decidedly worse for wear we hopped in a taxi, which proceeded to take the ‘scenic route’ back to the airport using the winding coastal road. By the time we arrived at the airport Viks was feeling a bit green around the gills to say the least. The flight back was uneventful and we were looking forward to spending New Years Eve at a beach BBQ with our friends Nico and Roma. For those of you that do not know Nico also doubles as our Spanish teacher. It was a nice dry evening, that was until in true British BBQ style the heavens opened and our sausages became a wee bit soggy! The night was a multinational success however, with people from Japan, Ireland, Tahiti, Argentina and the French hosts. Yes you heard right, Richard attended a party thrown by French people.

Not too much beyond the ordinary from there (they say dismissively whilst furiously packing the day before their flight to South America), just a trip up Rangitoto, the old volcanic island in the bay and the odd fireworks display.

Anyway that’s all for now folks, but rest assured that now we’re back on the road, the blogs will start to trickle through again.

Bye for now

Vik and Rik

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