Copthorne Central Christchurch

... the bus and roads were beginning to be closed. We had to wait quite a while for one road to be cleared, but no one minded as this gave us chance to go and play in the snow!!! :-) It was great fun, especially being with quite a few people in our group who had never seen snow before! We eventually arrived at our accommodation and after dinner took part in the Pub Quiz which was good fun! I was useless (my amazing lack general knowledge!! :-) ) but the team ...

... work the flushing out grey, black water and filling in fresh.

Day 3: We now intend to cut across the south island towards the East coast and possibly Milford Sound/Queenstown. Having no idea of the terrain and how much time it might take us to reach were not sure of where we would reach. Enroute we decided to hit MIlford Sound straightaway. The landscape on this route changes dramatically from the coastal to green pastures and meadows with grazing sheep all over. In ...

... and 6 sashimi (must be a Jap pub - battered & raw for the roundeyes). They stuck 2 into each shell, so I'm guessing they snuck a few bottled ones in for us tourists. They were nice enough, but really not worth the $45 charge. I noticed most supermarkets charge $25 for a dozen bottled Bluff oysters, so I'll stick to our Coffin Bay and Nelson Bay oysters for $15 a dozen, opened in the shell or $10 for 18 bottled. But, I can still say I tried 'em. It makes $5 a jar for mussels ...

... extremely impressive by the quality of the house, and our room was all made up (its sort of an annex-cum-garage) for us...with a big and very comfy bed which was just what we needed! Instead of going straight to bed at 2 in the afternoon, we thought that after 3days of travelling we deserved some PINTS of beer and a very long awaited scolding hot (for me) CURRY! Two of the things we both missed greatly from Central America.



We spent the weekend exploring the ...

... we just kind of hung out. We actually met 3 other people on a different YWAM DTS based out of Perth, Australia on 2 separate occasions which was cool. The first girl saw us spelling YWAM with our bodies at a certain street and taking a picture as part of our scavenger hunt and asked if we were with YWAM. The other 2 girls came up to me and my teammate Emrie in a random store and felt like God wanted to ...

... the treaty were not honored. So this makes some non-Maori's mad. But on the whole NZ has dealt with the native people/white settlers issue the best compared to the US and Australia. The Maori's are well integrated into society and there is a nice mix of Maori names and English names in everyday use. Regardless of what side you stand on, February 6th is a national holiday in NZ. The biggest celebrate is way up north where the treaty was created and signed. But the biggest ...

We drove right across the South Island from Hokitika to Christchurch via Arthurs Pass. We stopped at the Devils Punchbowl waterfalls for lunch then picked up a Hungarian hitchhiker who was cool and went to Stream Caves which the public can go caving in, 600m long in waist deep water for an hour. I was up for doing it then tested the water and quickly changed my mind, I keep forgetting all rivers and lakes here are freezing cold. We drove on to Castle Rocks, a formation of ...

Afternoon all. Actually, it's 6am over there. And probably very cold. Guess what? It's flippin' gorgeous here once again :-p I've been typing up this blog over breakfast since I arrived in Christchurch, but seeing as I'm hitting the road early tomorrow I figured I'd do it beneath the warm evening sunshine here on the roof patio with a beer. Snow you say? OK, after yesterdays epic yet exhausting day, I figured a more laid back ride was in order and after consulting the guys at Natural High I'd ...