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Published: March 23rd 2008
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So first blog in quite a while i think this one. It's been a great few weeks, have been on two great trips (Longbeach and Christchurch) and am also actually loving my lectures in general, one of our lecturers (the one teaching me 'Music in Art') could actually be a stand-up comedian, he manages to wring a joke every minute out of music's representation in victorian portrait art - no easy feat.
Anyway Longbeach is the first trip I went on a couple of weeks ago, its two big caves besides the sea about half an hour's drive from Dunedin and we went there to spend the night in one of them. I knew only a few people out of the fifteen there properly, so it was great to meet a whole bunch of people and share a big barbeque together. The caves were awesome too, it get's so narrow that you can't carry on through, though you can go in pretty deep anyway. There's also a lot of animals I've never seen before here, not just the spiders or lizards; in one of the caves there was what I could only describe as a 'dead something'. The closest thing
it looked like was a fox, and none of the people with me could work out what it was. I would have taken a picture but it looked pretty hellish and you wouldn't want that on your harddrive.
At about midnight we also went skinny-dipping (well boxer-dipping, all but one true man - not me, kept their underwear on). This was pretty awesome, though a little stupid as apparently the great white sharks come close to shore late in the night. Though it's not quite as bad as it sounds, they haven't had a shark attack since the seventies here, and you'd also still have to go pretty far out to find one - even then its probably a cute little thing as opposed to Jaws.
Sleeping in the caves was suprisingly comfortable; the sand was very soft and even without a mat and with just a sleeping bag, it was pretty cosy and I slept pretty well. I also got to practice some of my french with a guy there (I'm taking french aswell as music by the way), he'd just come from France and it was pretty cool having a (very basic) conversation with him.
The next place I went to which i'm recovering from as I type this this afternoon, is Christchurch - a big city north-east of the south island. The town looks pretty amazing, lots to see and do although the majority of our time round the town was walking round angrily trying to buy wine for the evening with people refusing to let us get drunk on Good Friday. Still we had an awesome time and got to see a fair bit of the place, it also made me a little homesick as it's very English looking in Architecture - plus we went to see 'The other Boleyn Girl', not my usual cup of tea but was a great, very English, historical drama film. Definitely recommend it though it is bloody upsetting and intense. Everyone also wanted historical questions answered by me afterwards, probably came to the wrong person but I think i filled in with roughly the correct details.
After that we went back to the house we were staying in, an awesome but slightly-creepy-at-night-house in the middle of nowhere and played a version of sharades which is probably too complicated to explain right now but was great fun, made some tea (or dinner as I have to call it unless I want to be laughed at as 'silly english boy' - noones said that don't worry) and drunk a little bit of wine. I have also rushed ahead in this blog and left out an entire night out of the two we stayed in Christchurch, though the highlight of the other night although fun, was creeping across a misty field with my Canadian friend John looking for cows; so I'm sure you won't mind if I let it slip for now. Anyway we came back and went straight out to the clubs where I saw an amazing Jimi Hendrix-like band with a blues-rock guitarist who looked and played like a rockgod.
So thats pretty much it for now, there's a few more things I'm going to try and add soon, and also a film of a place we stopped in in Christchurch which we drove down to from the bridge above because me and Kae thought we saw a dolphin which when we got down there, turned out to be a dog. Or a 'dogfin' as my other toroa resident and friend Vincent called it. There isn't a film of that actual event taking place as exciting as it would be, but of looking round the place itself. I'll try and get that up today along with some pictures of the cave at longbeach and some other Christchurch ones.
Hope everyone's well and enjoying themselves,
Tom
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ben
non-member comment
yo
sounds like you're having a great time! I'd love to see the 'dead thing' despite you deeming it too gruesome for my harddrive :P have a good easter mate... still need ur mobile number! I'll give you a call over easter... take care Ben