Streams, dolphins and seals

  Christchurch, New Zealand
Saturday, January 20, 2007

It's a strange thing in the world - to be compared to the English. Christchurch is now the third city I've been to which has been described as the "most English city" in a particular country - this follows on from Delhi and Adelaide. I'm struggling to think of anywhere else in the world that bears similar comaprison - is there anywhere that's the most Japanese city in another country - would you want to live there anyway? As I mentioned in my last blog, I'm not sure if one can really call this Englishness a compliment or not -is there a unifying thread that links all these places with the motherland? Well, if anyone can find a comparison between Delhi and Christchurch, I'd be very surprised! Certainly no monkey shat on my shoe here and I haven't heard a car horn in over a week in New Zealand.

Anyway, on to Christchurch - I thought Adelaide was laid back - this place is bloody comatose. I arrived on a Sunday afternoon and went for a stroll through town - I swear I saw only about 10 people in an hour - even the bars were deserted. Weekday's aren't a lot more hectic with the busiest place in town being the local tourist information office, which in fairness is huge and fantastically well equipped. It's probably a bit cruel to suggest that the only reason it's so big is to give all the tourists something to do, specifically planning their escape, but......... In fairness, the place is very pretty,

Very pretty!

and although I wouldn't suggest it's similar to an English city, a little village somewhere in the Cotswolds might be a good comparison - they even have punting down their own little stream (I can't bring myself to call it a river)

Punting down the Avon

.

One thing I did learn whilst there was how utterly obsessed the Kiwi's are with rugby - I'd popped into their biggest sports bar which was showing the England - NZ cricket match - there were two huge screens, one showing the game and the other showing a Wasps match from the European Cup that weekend (for those of you who don't know, Wasps are an English rugby team). Most of the patrons were crowded around the rugby match, even though it was 48 hours old, didn't involve any NZ clubs, etc etc.  Additionally every other shop sells some form of All Black's memorabilia - amusingly the main rugby shop is called Champions - I was tempted to point out that this was a slightly misleading name and possibly renaming it "Chokes on the Big Occasions" might be more apt, but as the bloke behind the till looked like he could pack down in any second row in the world, I bought a t-shirt for my nephew and scurried out.

From Christchurch, up the cost to a little town called Kaikura for a little bit of fun in the sea. First up, the dolphins - Kaikura is one of the few places in the world where large pods of wild dolphins

Dolphins & Mountains

are pretty much guaranteed and they seem to enjoy the company of us humans as we splash around them. One of the first things you realise as you get into the water, is how bloody cold the Southern Ocean is - even in a pretty thick wetsuit, my Adams Apple was joined by two mates pretty quickly. The next thing you realise is how fast the dolphins really are - you peer into the gloomy water

Dusky dolphin (promise!)

and see these rapid shapes darting around underneath you - on the surface they give you a bit of time to have a good look, before they swim off again to join their mates. It's a slightly sobering experience - in the dives I've done so far on this trip, you never really appreciate how suited we aren't to water - it's only  when you see these fantastic and graceful creatures buzzing around, without a care in the world, do you twig that this really is their habitat, not ours.

The following day, it was back in the water, this time with the intention of a couple of dives. Diving in this part of the world is a risky business, not because it's any more dangerous than anywhere else in the world, but because the visibility can be very bad - and on our dive, it was - maximum two metres (which is not a lot!) - added to which the water, as mentioned, is pretty cold, specifically 14 deg. So, the dive's not going great - it's cold, the currents are quite strong and you can't see anything - and then whoosh, two shapes appear out of nowhere and start swimming between the divers - we quickly sussed they were seals, but after a minute or so they buggered off - however, compared to the dolphin experience, this was something else - the speed and agility they moved at under the water was staggering and to actually be amongst them as they went was fantastic.  When we surfaced we were offered the option of another dive or a snorkelling trip towards the seal colony on the rocks - bizarrely, I was the only one who opted for the snorkel, on the basis that I was freezing cold, we couldn't see anything under water and the chance to swim with seals is pretty cool. So, of I toddled and boy, was it the right decision! Two seals wandered over pretty quickly and I just lay there in the water as they swam around me - they got very close, around a metre as they investigated who this new form of whale was

What you looking at?

- eventually they decided I wasn't entertaining them enough and they swam back to their rocks for some more sunbathing. By the time I got back to the boat, the divers had returned, suffering from hypothermia and bemoaning the fact that the visibility had dropped to less than a metre - I think I made the right call!

And now on to Queenstown - adventure capital of New Zealand, home of the bungy jump, jet-boating and host of other adrenalin fuelled excitement.  I've booked a day's fly-fishing.........


Rob