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Published: April 16th 2008
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Christchurch 1
The River Avon Saturday 8th March
We finally arrived in New Zealand after an epic journey from L.A. After leaving Mexico on the 5th we flew back to Los Angeles and we were there for 23 hours before we boarded a plane for a 14 hour flight to Auckland. We arrived in the Kiwi Capital at 5:40am on the 8th & somehow lost a day as we crossed the date line. We then had to fly from Auckland 1 hour later to christchurch & we finally landed there at 8am.
By the time we checked into our hostel room at 1pm we were absolutely exhausted not to mention Jet lagged so not suprisingly we slept until the next morning.
Sunday 9th March
After our well deserved sleep we were up bright and early ready to explore the city by 9am. The weather was fantastic it was like a perfect summers day in England warm but not hot and sticky!
Christchurch is called the garden city & the place is beautiful. The River Avon snakes through the city centre and all its banks were grass lined with plants and huge weeping willow trees. If you wanted you could hire a pedalo or
Christchurch 2
Punting on the avon a kayak to explore the river or you could go punting. We decided not to go on the river but we occasionally saw the odd tourist being ferried around by a smartly dressed man pushing a small narrow boat along with a stick (AKA Punting!!!)
After walking around the city centre we wandered into the I-Site. I-Sites are government funded tourist information centers where you can book tours, accomdation, care hire etc etc throughout the whole of New Zealand. After picking up what seemed like a million leaflets we then spoke to one of the advisors to enquire about Campervan Hire. We had a rough idea of the price due to countless hours spent at home comparing prices but we were quoted silly prices for campers which we just could not afford. Then the lady mentioned you could hire a Spaceship. No I know what you are thinking............We came to see New Zealands South Island not Mars & cost of petrol is high let alone rocket fuel but a Spaceship is a budget campervan firm. Technically its not a camper at all its a 6 seated people carrier. It still had 4 seats (the 2 front and the 2 directly
behind the driver) but the back 2 had been removed for the bed. You also had to open the boot and attach an awning around it as the bed hanged halfway out the back!!!! It also had a tiny fridge, a twin burner gas stove which swang outside the vehicle and most importantly a DVD player and tiny 9" LCD screen. But the coolest thing of all was that they were painted bright orange and were given space like names such as Jupiter & Luke and 1 was evan called the Hoff! It sounded great and the price was what we planned to spend so we went to go and look at one. After the inspection we were both happy we could live in it for four weeks and so we returned to the I-Site and booked it.
After sorting out the Spaceship we explored more of the city on foot and visited the spectacular Botanical Gardens, the Canterbury Museum and had a general look around.
We then came accross the Art Center. Bex and I are not big on art but we thought we would give it a go anyway as it was free!! As we entered we went straight into a courtyard and looked to our left and noticed hundreds of people. As we walked closer we noticed it was a market. As we got closer still we noticed there were all food stalls selling food from all around the world. There was Chinese, Turkish, Thai, Indian, Lebanese, French and German stalls all smelling and looking fantastic. As it now was lunch time we could not resist and we both had a great meal and it was extremely good value. Also within this market were art & craft stalls which we spent a while exploring but didn't buy anything.
We then headed back to the City Centre and decided to take a look at the cathedral. We went inside and noticed we could climb the up to the top of the bell tower. So we paid a few bucks and climbed the narrow spiral staircase and got to the top. The view here was okay but not great as it wasn't huge but it was cool none the less to see where we had walked and look down at the world below.
Christchurch is a really clean & pleasant City which had a very familiar English feel about the place. It was also extremely quiet for a Major City even though it had 1/3 of the south island population living here. However New Zealand has a population of around 4 million and only 900,000 of them live on the south Island so its not that suprising.
Monday 10th March
We spent the morning shopping in Christchurch and we purchased a couple of second hand books and some warmer clothes as it was nearing the end of the Kiwi's Summer and may get a little chilly when we head south.
We then went to pick up our Spaceship. After sorting out the paperwork and vehicle checks we were on the road by 1pm and ready to start our adventure. Our Spaceship was called Hubbell & we had choosen 2 DVD's and when you see another Spaceship on the road you can swap them. So we set off & I wanted to head north and Bex wanted to go south first and we could not agree what option to take. We ended up on a one way system and after getting lost for a bit we were heading North so thats the direction we ended up going.
In no time at all we were out of the City and straight into farmland. We followed the road for 40 minutes or so then we noticed a sign for a beach called Waikaka bay and we decided to go and explore. We parked up hopped out and walked on the deserted beach and couldn't believe that a beach this size so close to a city centre could be so empty!
We jumped back into Hubbell and drove a bit more & hugged the East coast heading North. After a couple more beach stops we ended up in Kaikoura around 4pm. We visited the I-Site here and were given the options for campsites. Kaikoura is famous for Whales & is the place to go to in NZ for a whale watching tour. The price of this was extremely expensive so the lady explained we could do a nice 3 hour walk around the Seal Colony which was free & we agreed that was a good idea.
We then stopped at a supermarket to buy food and supplies for the next few days and then headed to our campsite called Alpine Paciific to set up camp early and unpack our bags. After an hour or so we made ourselves familiar with the layout of Hubbell and had everything organised for our 4 weeks on the road.
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