Holiday Inn City Center Christchurch

Woke at 9.30 am and had breakfast. We packed and left at 11.15. We went to 'Westfield Riccarton' and I bought an $8 calendar. We had KFC for lunch at 1.00, left at 1.15 and returned our rent-a-car at 1.30 pm. We were then dropped at the airport by the company, and we checked-in. I used the internet ($2 for 10 minutes) and we took off at 4.00. It was a four hour flight, so we arrived around 6.00 pm (Melbourne time). We checked in at the 'Holiday Inn' Hotel (opposite the airport) and we had Mac...

Hello from Auckland and welcome to our last posting from New Zealand. And what a blast we've had. We dropped Syd II to the airport yesterday after spending our last night in his company on the outskirts of the city the night before. Now we're staying in a city centre hostel and while not exactly sight seeing in Auckland we spent the past two days just walking around the city, doing a bit of shopping, posting stuff home, taking it easy in Starbucks and going to the cinema to see Whale Rider (i...

Full of anticipation, we arrived at the Christchurch Holiday Inn lobby to join our Active New Zealand tour group. Half of what we had hauled through SE Asia was earmarked for this 2-week hiking/biking/kayaking adventure circuit around New Zealand's South Island, and we were eager to finally put some of our warmer clothes to use in the cool spring weather. But even more exciting was the reality that months of speculation about how our itinerary would come to life and with whom we would share t...

Our introduction to New Zealand started with one of the roughest landings we've ever experienced. It was a nice sunny day at the Christchurch Airport, but when we touched down, we TOUCHED down. Several members of our tour group are retired Air Force personnel, and it was very interesting to hear their comments. Our first stop on the way to our hotel was the International Antarctic Center. The center is the departure point for New Zealand, Italian and U.S. teams to their respective bases in An...

Sun 31 Aug

8:00
AM - Up early again as usual, I looked out the window and I took some
nice shots of the mountains behind Lake Tekapo with the sunrise
lighting them up. There were also flocks of birds that I took shots of
as well, probably boring when I see them later though, but this macro
lens is amazing.

8:30 AM - We get our stuff ready and head
downstairs for breakfast. They have the most amazing kitchen, with a
huge 10-15 ft granite island lined with...

We finished packing on January 11th, along with last minute errands and finally got on the plane. Yes, we were running errands up to the last minute. :) We crossed the international date line, so January 12th flew by in a flash. We landed in Auckland for a few hours. The airport is pretty small and there was not much to do... we climbed on top of the parking garage and watched the planes land and take off to the backdrop of lovely blue/green water. Shortly thereafter we took a flight to Chris...

Viimeinen päivä Sydneyssä oli sateisen harmaa ja kului ihan vaan kaupungilla pyöriessä. Kauppakeskuksessa nähtiin kun joltain vanhemmalta mieheltä huijattiin (lue varastettiin) kymmenen dollaria keskellä kirkasta päivää. Samainen niljake kävi hetkeä aikaisemmin örisemässä minulle jotain typerällä aussienglannillaan, mutta sanoin vaan, että no understand, no unterstant :-) Juu, tarkkana saa näköjään olla! Kello 15 aikoihin haettiin sitten kamat hostellin säilöstä ja lähdettiin kohti lentokentt...

Toinen Christchurchin päivä meni ikävästi eversti Von Ribbentropin yllätysiskun seurauksena pitkälti hotellissa ja nimenomaan siellä kaakeliloungen puolella :-) Meikäläisellä oli vain pientä oireilua, mutta Katjalla täysi kaaos päällä! Eilen syötiin Subway ravintolassa illalla leivät ja maistelin kyllä, että nyt on hiukan happamat keitokset ja jotain mätää selvästi ...mutta nälkäisiä kun oltiin, niin pitihän se syödä. Tämä oli nyt toinen kerta meidän matkustushistorian aikana, kun Subway ravi...