Blogs from Akaroa, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 8

Awoke early to cold frosty morning. Enjoyed a hearty breakfast, considering nothing to eat yesterday. I inquired as to the proximity of Apollo Rentals to our hotel to be told "just around the corner"Decided to walk to Apollo rentals to pick up our 6 berth Euro Deluxe motorhome that will be our accomodation for the next two weeks.... 1 hour and three "k" later walking in sub zero tempratures, I found said depot...yer, right "just around the corner".... thank's a lot!!!! After going through all the BS to actually rent one of these units, I finally drove out of their driveway. only to get lost in the airport precinct until finally finding the Sudima Hotel where I started from some two hours before. Collect Judy, Brett and all our luggage from the hotel and we hit ... read more

I forgårs gik jeg en tur i Christchurch på ca. 4 km for at finde et supermarked for at købe lidt frugt og mælk, men det lykkes mig ikke på den tur at finde ét eneste sted, der havde disse to ting i samme butik = supermarked. Det kan muligvis bare have været præcis den rute, jeg havde valgt, for jeg fandt senere ud af, at der rent faktisk findes supermarkeder i byen, men mens jeg gik, slog det mig, hvor ualmindeligt fantastisk overdrevet mange steder, jeg kunne få en kop kaffe. De gange jeg har været i USA, har jeg undret mig over det faktum, at der nødvendigvis bare skal ligge en Starbucks for hver ca. 500m, men her er det ikke bare Starbucks. Stort set hver anden butik reklamerer med, at man kan få ... read more

Yes, I smuggle Bananas. I have to hold my hands up to this crime. Some people prefer smuggling class A drugs and making money that way but I just cant get enough of the yellow fellas. On the flight over from Sydney we had been given the usual paperwork to complete for customs. The usual questions were on there, have you got any animals/ explosives / cocaine ...... the important one for me turned out to be food ! Rather innocently ( or stupidly ! ) I had decided to "save for later" the banana I had been given with a meal on the flight. I put it in my hand luggage and thought nothing more about it. An hour later it was pulled out by a lady in customs ( she had spotted the offending ... read more

Day 29- Akaroa Another boat cruise today, this time from Akaroa to the sea taking in the volcano basin (Akaroa is in an old volcano) an on the hunt for the worlds smallest penguin, fur seals and the worlds rarest and smallest dolphin, the hector dolphin. The weather was beautiful but the was a swell out to sea which had hampered the previous days trip. We were told that there was only small chance of seeing anything. Our luck though came through and we saw a penguin swimming out at sea by the boat, a seal leaping out of the water and then loads of them basking on the rocks and playing in a pool and then the highlight was having 6 dolphins playing and swimming right by the boat. The rest of the day was ... read more

Hi there all! Sorry for the delay in emailing, its been pretty hectic since Andy and I arrived here in New Zealand (2 weeks ago now, but anyway!!!) Here's a bit of a lowdown as to what we've been getting up to, read on if you find this stuff interesting, if not, at least now you know we got there safely! Also, for those of you with Facebook, we've put some photos up. Andy's are a little different to mine, so if you're truly keen add him as a friend (he'd appreciate some more friends...he's not got that many) ;-) ... So, after a REALLY REALLY long flight (*heathrow, stopped briefly at singapore, and landed in christchurch, south island) which was almost diverted to Auckland because of heavy fog over Christchurch, we arrived safely and were ... read more