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Published: January 11th 2010
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Christchurch 21st to 23rd of December
Having arrived back in Christchurch safe and sound we got off the bus and headed to the supermarket to find our couch surfing host a gift. What is couch surfing? We heard about it whilst travelling in South America and works quite simply like this. Anybody who has a free couch, floor or if you’re luck a bed advertises it on the couch surfing website and those who require it simply send a message asking if they can use it. Great idea if you ask me, saves on accommodation and a great way to meet local people. We’d decided to give it a go and had also decided it would be nice to take our host a thank you being wine and mince pies.
We caught the bus a couple of kilometres out of town the town centre to our hosts house where we were met by Martin and later his fiancé Fen who had recently moved into their new home. We chatted about our travels and listened to some of their stories whilst also admiring their Christmas tree made entirely of balloons. A little later we headed out to buy some food
Rock, paper, scissors
Doddy Vs. Martin
Doddy lost this one! for tea. We decided between us that they would cook for us that night and we would in return cook for them the following night. Having returned back to the house we gave them our thank you gifts, and then sat back while Martin cooked a really tasty paella to which the wine was opened and enjoyed whilst we ate.
The rest of the evening was spent chatting and more importantly having a game of paper, scissors, stone to which Martin was a great follower of and had even been out to the world championships in Toronto where he had met Bob ‘the rock’ Cooper the 2006 world champ who I had also met at a festival (all quite a long story!) Anyway, the main point is I won! We went to bed, not on a couch, not on a floor, but in our own room on a proper bed, fantastic!
Next morning we awoke and after breakfast and a bit of a catch up on the internet we headed back into Christchurch to see a few more sights and do our all important Christmas present hunt for one another where we had given ourselves each $15 limit.
After an hour of heading off in our separate ways to sweep the town for various Christmas gifts we later rendezvoused back in Cathedral Square where we watched a little of the well renowned ‘Wizard’ a comical street performer before heading to the art gallery to have a look around whilst carefully concealing presents. Having taken a trip to the art gallery and soaking up a little more sunshine we headed back to the bus station to Martin and Fens house and set to work cooking our evening meal of vegetable lasagne and garlic bread.
The vegetable lasagne went down a storm and was topped off with a few beers (from a very good off license complete with its own microbrewery) and a board game called Stone Age.
23rd of December, the day the campervan was due to be picked up. We had organised back in Rio to do a campervan delivery for a company via www.standbyrelocations.com which would allow us the use of a 2 berth with shower and toilet camper for 5 days over the Christmas period at $5 a day! We said farewell and thank you’s to Martin and Fen and left to ctach the
bus to Christchurch airport to where the campervan centre was located. The bus journey ran the schedule and soon we were back at Christchurch airport and with a brief shuttle bus ride we were at the campervan pick up centre filling in the relevant paperwork. Having viewed the DVD that showed us all our required camper knowledge we were given the keys to our Christmas camper a Britz VW. We loaded our bags in and checked out all the onboard gadgets. It was great, shower, toilet, fridge and cooker, but it was still no Bellucci (my campervan)!
We set off listening to Empire of the Sun to find a local supermarket where we could stock up with supplies and ingredients for Christmas dinner. Pack n’ Save was the supermarket of choice simply because it was cheap! So after a brief few minutes of car park mayhem trying to park the camper in a very busy car park we ventured into the supermarket, grabbed all the required supplies and hopped back into the camper and set off north following the East coast. Once out of the city we changed drivers and Bowks took over to drive us to Kaikoura on
what was her first time driving a campervan. She had no problem navigating us as we whistled and sang along to various Christmas songs. It was great driving the sunny coastline especially with it nearly being Christmas it seemed all a little strange, especially with the cold conditions we were hearing about back home. We stopped briefly to enjoy our first mince pie of the season and watch some surfers on the waves the ventured onwards to where we finally pulled up next to a river and vineyard on the outskirts of Blenheim and decided it was a great place to park for the night.
Having parked up we settled down on what was to be a night of freedom camping and took a walk to dip our feet in the river. It was lovely and warm for a running river and in most places only ankle deep so we were able to walk in it whilst enjoying the odd game of poo-sticks (which Bowks won!) We then headed back to the van and enjoyed the yummy carbonara that we cooked for tea then with a quick rearrangement of camper equipment the table and seating became a bed and
we were off to kip.
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Matt Herwin
non-member comment
No more mince pies for me!
Hi Both, New Zealand looks beautiful, Bowks ya look right at home driving, bet it's a right laff! Keep enjoyin 2010 you two!