YHA Christchurch City Central

Arrived safely from Australia having had to go through a rigorous process to get in. They are so strict I had to have my boots washed because I said I had been on a farm!! Oh well that over Scenic Circle Airdale Hotel made up for it as I was double-booked into one room they gave me a suite instead - bargain. Picked up early on day one of my 21 day New Zealand Tour of North and South Islands. Its a bit drizzling but its not cold. North Island Day 1 - Auckland to Bay of Islands. Going to Bay of...

Entry containing 13 photos titled: Cathedral square, cool fountain, cool fountain again, maori carving, ..., bridge over the river avon, a duck, river avon, cool fountain, 'we are not amused', red phone box, Oxford terrace, gloucester street

There is a lesson in this blog entry folks and you need to take heed of this. Remember I missed a flight earlier in my travels? Well I decided to get to the airport very early to ensure that all was well. I tried unsuccessfully several times to book in electronically until a lovely lady from the airline heard me muttering and came to help. 'Lets do this at the desk' she said. 'Oh dear, cant find you, go and see that man over there'. So off I trotted. 'Ah', he says 'You missed a flight and all...

Today I went out with one of the SOCO's here. Again they are all sworn officers within the SOCO unit. We attended a dwelling burglary and also a burglary of an industrial unit.

The jobs are taken by the control room and passed to a unit that screen them for forensic potential. If this is recognised, an appointment is made for the SOCO to attend.

Generally SOCO's do not attend theft from motor vehicles and few thefts of motor vehicles Any serious or major crime is attended by the...

Jennie travelled over from Australia to spend the weekend with me. She remembered that she was a little lonely towards the end of her travels and, considering she had never visited New Zealand, she came over to join me for the weekend. I must say, it was great to see a friendly face in the downtime between appointments.

I had booked us on a bus tour to travel to Kaikora to go whale watching. This is something that I had always wanted to do as they have held a facination for me since I ...

friday was christchurch where I'd arranged to meet Matt Teear from work and an old old mate tommy johnston - from colchester who now lives in new zealand lateish thursday I got wind from matt that we were going to a brewery so assumed we were doing a brewery tour friday i found out otherwise and rapidly got tom an invite - we weren't going on a brewery tour but to the social club of the canterbury brewery where matts brother works. I met matt at 3pm and quickly grabbed something to eat and ca...

We flew into Christchurch, the main city on the east coast of the South Island. The city was settled by the English only 150 years ago and thus has a very small English city feel to it. It's a lovely place however with an amazing museum that we spent the best part of 2 days in.

It has become painfully obvious that we have spent to much time dilly-dallying around and sadly have very little time to explore the South Island. Therefore, we left Picton and simply headed to Christchurch in order to be there in time for our flight to Oz. When we say in time, really we mean with a few days to pretty much hang around and not do a lot. Though in fairness all our clothes are now clean again, so there we have achieved. Christchurch is a really nice place. It's called the garden...

NEW ZEALAND Before leaving Australia and heading to Asia, i decided to have a small holiday in New Zealand. So, a few dyas later than planned and 200 dollars later due to the Chinese Visa office, I flew into Christchurch airport and was met by the super shuttle to take me to my YHA hostel - all park of my package. Once in Christchurch and settled into my hostel, a girl came flying into the room like a whilrwind, introduced herself then flew back out again, i now know that girl as Laura and sh...