Blogs from Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

I arrived in New Zealand in Christchurch at 2 in the morning and straight away grabbed my jacket from my backpack. After 3 months of hot Australian summer weather it was nice to be cold. However I was tired and needing a bed to sleep and thank god I had pre booked a hostel earlier, which I had stopped doing whilst in Australia. I got dropped of at the YHA by a group taxi outside the front door and noticed that the 24 hour reception was closed! After banging on the door for a while, it was answered by a cleaner who tried his best to get me checked in and after 15 minutes of checking in, I was given a room key and directions to the room where I would be staying and obviously at ... read more

5th September 2015 - Today I took a mini road trip into and over the mountains driving on Dyers Pass... As my family know, I am no good with hill starts and oh my, this hill was huge! What goes up...must come down so they say! So that is what I kept thinking of! Despite all the hills, there was only one place I needed to stop and yes...I rolled back! But hey, it's my first time in an Automatic so I let myself off! For anyone travelling this route, there are many places to stop and take some photos of the amazing scenery. Going up the mountain from Christchurch city, you can see the whole of Christchurch, it's surrounding areas and the beautiful snowy mountains in the background. Once you reach the top, the views ... read more

I was standing in the kitchen when I first laid eyes on her. She wore a vibrant blue jacket and an infectious smile. Her hair was a light brown and pronounced itself to the word in waves of fizzy curls to her shoulders. She carried a huge pack as if it were a sack of bread loaves. In one hand, she had a reusable grocery bag full of veggies and in the other a bottle of red wine. In the first few seconds of seeing her, I knew three things to be true: 1. If I cut my hair short, that is what would happen. 2. She's got a bit a crazy in her. 3. We are going to be friends. Linda is from the US and traveling for six weeks on her own before going ... read more

Well here we are getting ready for our 1 week camping adventure in the Canterbury region of the South Island. This is going to be a casual relaxing week with no bookings for accommodation made. Airline tickets were booked last year with bargain fares $500 return for the two of us with Jetstar Australia. March is off season and that suits us fine. A camper has been booked with Apollo - cost $1,200 for seven days with full insurance. This camper doesn't have a shower or toilet but we are happy with this decision as there are plenty of public toilets available on the South Island - and we plan on doing some freedom camping and stopping in holiday parks when we can. We will arrive in Christchurch late at night so our first night we ... read more

Christchurch and Akaroa (I've decided to write the blog week-by-week in New Zealand, in an effort to make it more manageable.) My standard method of booking accommodation online one or two days in advance had worked well thus far, but I found myself in danger of arriving in Christchurch with nowhere to stay, as everywhere seemed to be full. Thankfully, after a lengthy search across several websites, I got a bed at Avon City Backpackers a couple of miles east of the centre. On arrival, the reason for my difficulties became clear. The city centre was completely ruined in the earthquake of February 2011, with a large exclusion zone still in place. I was told that 5000 beds had been lost as a result. The hostel seemed to be in a permanent state of disorder, as ... read more