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Published: February 17th 2007
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Homes Sweet Home
The Shalom Backpackers on Bealey Avenue - easily our favourite hostel in New Zealand :-) Being back in Christchurch has felt a bit like coming home, a sure sign if any were needed this would be the city we would immigrate to if we and when decide to make the move.
Most of our time since finishing our campervan tour has been spent with practical matters such as trying to get our flights changed although that has been no easy task. Unfortunately for us, Qantas decided to close its Christchurch office back in December so where had nowhere to go for help. I called up the freephone number only to be told by the Qantas rep that I would need to speak to British Airways instead. So, where's the nearest British Airways office? In Australia, of course! The rep transferred me over and all was going well until the British Airways rep said that we would need to pick up our new paper tickets from the Qantas office in Christchurch. She wasn't sure whether the Christchurch Airport office would be able to reissue the tickets and so the only solution would be to pick up the tickets in Auckland. This was crazy as to get to Auckland to pick up our ticket, we needed to
Shalom Backpackers
Typical New Zealand style wooden house - ours was the room at the top with the open window :-) be on one of the flights on the new ticket. It was a catch 22 situation that left us utterly flummoxed.
I didn't dare go through with booking the changes until we could find a way around all this silliness and waited instead in case either of us had a moment of inspiration (or inspirado!). We considered arranging to have the tickets couriered over from Auckland but when I rang the Qantas freephone number a second time, everything sorted itself out. It turns out that the airport in Christchurch can issue paper tickets after all so I made all the changes over the phone and on Saturday we caught the bus up to the airport ($12 return each) to pick up our precious cargo. What had originally seemed like an impossible task was actually a really straightforward affair. What a palava!
The day after our return to Christchurch we had a call from Florian and Veronika, the German couple from the campsite at Amberley Beach, asking if we were still up for a beer. It was almost 9.30pm by the time they phoned and by 10.15, we were sat in an Irish pub called The Bog with a
North by Northwest
Glynn suspects that the local road planning team may have been using a broken compass. pint of Canterbury Draught apiece. We hadn't had much opportunity to get to know them at Amberley so this evening we got down to business. They, like us, met over the internet although theirs was on a German-based mountaineering-related website but the first time they actually met was in New Zealand just over a month ago. How's that for going in at the deep end?! It was a lovely night and I was amazed to find myself pretty merry after just a couple of pints - hope I'm not losing my touch!
We also had a fun day out at the Science Alive! science centre although it was a far cry from the awesome one we visited in Singapore a few months ago. Most of the hands-on exhibits consisted of puzzles similar to ones which we have come across before so it didn't take us long to work our way round everything although Jish did insist on having a go on everything. The best bit without a doubt was having a go at lying on a bed of nails - it's not as painful as it looks but I wouldn't want to do it for more than 30 seconds!
3 Germans and a Brit
More new friends l-r: Florian, Veronika, Jude & Glynn plus lots of beer :-)) We paid $5 extra on top of the $8 student rate entrance fee (thank you Bangkok for the fake ISIC cards) to play a round of glow-in-the-dark mini golf which was pretty cool although the overexcitable kids playing around us were a real pain in the arse. Still, when was the last time you were on a golf course that was luminous?
As is generally the case when we leave a country, we needed to send a parcel home. Glynn had been to the graphic novel shop a few too many times and along with a selection of souvenirs, our roadmap and guide book, the parcel ended up weighing a whopping 5.2Kg - by far the biggest parcel we've yet posted home. Packagingn it allup was probably the most daunting task not unlike playing a real-life version of Tetris!
Our last day was of course spent packing but for once we had something to look forward to before the restless night's sleep we always have before a flight - Wan came to visit us! He has been working on a flower farm close to Christchurch and hopped in his car to pay us a flying visit before we
Cartoon Theory Test
After lying on this bed of nails, Glynn was hoping to drink a glass of water and see it come pouring out of hundreds of little holes. (It didn't work btw!) left. It was fab to see him again and he even brought me a big bunch of flowers from work 😊 We persuaded him to drive us to Dominoes Pizza where we had a coupon for 2 large pizzas for just $12.90. Armed with a couple of boxes of my favourite dinner, we headed back to the hostel and sat out in the back garden for a couple of hours. We were all on form this evening and spent virtually every moment between mouthfuls in fits of laughter. In fact we were laughing so much that other people came out to join in the fun! It was the perfect way to finish off our stay here in New Zealand although this was topped by the hostel owner, Kaoru, who heard about my love of Hello Kitty and presented me with a box full of Kitty stationery goodies. Cool!
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