Blythcliffe Christchurch

... Most of our group, me included, were pretty tired on the train, as we slept almost all the way back.

Terry met us at the Christchurch station and drove us back to our respective hotels. I headed for my room to drop off items I had taken with me and later went out to do some souvenir shopping and dinner.

Tomorrow’s Plan is to attend church at the Majestic, and travel to the seaside towns of Sumner and Littleton. On the way back I will ride the gondola.

... had no heating and it was about 2 degrees outside. We had every blanket we could find, along with all the clothes in my backpack on. it was still cold.

Our last stop on our whirlwind north island tour was Auckland. We wandered round the city to see what it was like. We went and watched some people skyjump off the auckland tower. After that we wandered down to the port, found a nice bar and settled in for the afternoon. We spotted John ...

... further up towards hanmer Spring, we turn inland towards Arthurs Pass. Intention was to camp at some location at Arthurs Pass or thereabouts, however it is dark and we keep moving on till we finally reach Christchurh. This route is highly scenic, I guess we could not really get the maximum out of it at night, anyway we had already had a heavy overdose of scenic views..Once at Christchurch it became quite an effort to find a place to camp. Finally we found a paid campsite ...

... tail wind and much more fun! The true highlight of this little backwards and forwards was Hannah calling from the UK, which was very cool, if rudely interrupted by the wind (howling so loud we couldn't here each other)r and a dog. Once back in Cromwell, I court the bus and ended up sitting next to Millie, who was a New Zealander (the place seems suddenly full of them) and something of a oddity, our conversation, all initiated by Millie, who was a little deaf so couldn't ...

... ging es auch schon auf eine ziemlich internationale Osterparty. Der Gastgeber war wie mein Host Hollaender, seine Frau Polin, die Nachbarn Kiwi und Tscheche und dann waren da noch ein paar mehr Hollaender und Kiwis. Insgesamt gut 10 Leute. Es wurden angeblich 11 Flaschen Wein getrunken und ich habe nicht einmal geholfen! Man kann sich vorstellen, dass die Stimmung gut war. Nachdem ich wieder mal spaet im Bett war, habe ich heute nicht viel mehr geschafft, als meine Steuernummer zu ...

... wasn't working properly, but loads of free booze and the best two aeroplane meals you could ever have in economy class more than made up for that! So we arrived very jolly (if not a little jaded) at Auckland around 8am, and had a 5hour layover for our connection to Christchurch. We got our visas stamped with a minimum of fuss, although a pot of honey we brought with us had to be thrown away by the vey uptight biosecurity guards...we had the last laugh though as we snuck in a ...

... unanimously disappointed. The boat went fast and we got wet, but it never got the adrenaline going. The first night was very relaxed. I shared a big dorm room with the group of six English people I befriended on the bus. Westport didn't offer much in the way of nightlife and we weren't motivated to make something of it. This was in large part due to much anticipated Poo Pub the following night. The Poo Pub is a dingy establishment with extremely ...

We arrived in Christchurch pretty late (gone 10pm) and were lucky enough to catch the last shuttle bus from the airport to the city centre. Our hostel was slap bang in the middle of the city (on the Cathedral square!) so we couldn't have hoped for a more perfect location. It was quite surreal driving from the airport to our hostel as not only were we freezing in the New Zealand nightime climate, but all the roads and houses very much reminded us of home ...

... is just a tub in the forest where you get to just sit and look up at the stars at night. oh, and milky way in the southern Hemi is great! day 6: wairoa, NZ we kayaked a channel up the wairoa river. good times, very chill and again gorgeous landscape. alex and i agreed that it felt like we were in one of the indiana jones movies. it was funny when we got spooked by a wild goat. im sure we startled him too but it was just strange being ...

... in the UK on Monday 13th; another short stopover before heading for Greece about April 8th. E-mail is difficult in Greece so contacts are welcome ASAP and I'll give you the postal address for anyone wishing to dust off their writing pad. Anyone also wanting a discount sailing holiday, just say the word! Journals will appear at intervals over the summer.it's been lots of fun; until the next time!