New Zealand Part 2
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
9
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Christchurch,
South Island,
New Zealand
Friday, January 30, 2009
My first lesson went fairly well, using the button lift, side stepping up the mountain, but I struggled to master the snow plough, stopping that is to the non skiers, which is a problem when you have unknowingly learnt to go at a pace.
Whilst I had lessons, Toby went off and skied up in the clouds and we retired mid afternoon as the weather set in and the snow gets a bit mushy by this point.
Day 2 and we arrive before my lesson so Toby can give me some guidance on the nursery slopes, I was feeling fairly confident at this stage. So off I go, to show Toby what I can do, but I couldn't control the speed and wasn't able to apply my snow plough, so ended up on bum and found out why they give you gloves to wear, not having worn them as they were too bulky, ouch! Toby comes to rescue me and I then managed to master the snow plough a bit better.
A-View at the top of ski fields
After, Toby takes off skiing on his own, whilst I take my second lesson and after my instructor checked out the group ability, we were taken up to the next slope. Getting on and off the chair lift went without a hitch thankfully, although I have a few more tumbles throughout my lesson, but I'm coming along and whilst I was advised that I was safe enough to take the slope down, I opted for the chair lift down to meet Toby for lunch. Speaking of lunch, we ate a lot of pies in NZ, they make great pies and their café's are the best I have experienced anywhere.Day 3 and I was carrying my own equipment, look at me, I had a private lesson but didn't really feel I came on much further. I think my body was knackered , after waking up muscles that hadn't been used in a while, if ever! After my lesson, I waited for Toby to arrive, spotting him from afar and didn't he just look so cool, unfortunately for him he lost it and did the splits to stop himself falling over, very funny indeed. Our final afternoon and I found enough energy and courage to take a basic slope down with Toby. A few times the skis ran away from me and my stomach was in knots but I did ok, although the camera shows an awkward stance and it was difficult for Toby to get a smile out of me as I was concentrating so hard at controlling my speed. All in all, it was great, my legs were killing me after each day and although it was tough, I will be back on the slopes again at some point, if not only to get a fab ski outfit!! From Toby's point of view the skiing was a unexpected fantastic just turned 40 b day gift and he particularly enjoyed the apres ski, which pretty much consisted of us alone in a bar, talking about anything and everything, as it was the end of the season so it was quite but we had fun.
B-Mastering the button lift
So we said goodbye to the ski fields and headed for the east coast, visiting two art deco towns of Napier and Hastings. Both towns were re-built in the 1930's after a huge earthquake, hence the large amount of art deco buildings. We stayed only one night in Hastings, as we didn't think much of the campsite we stayed in. We generally stuck with a chain of campsites and the facilities varied in each, some very modern, clean facilities and others a bit dowdy like this one, but if they were a bit naff, it was only ever for a few nights, so it wasn't a big deal. Generally though the campsites were really good and kept our costs down, costing approx £10 a night and allowing us to cook for ourselves in the communal kitchens.
After Hastings we then headed off to Wellington, New Zealand's Capital City, which lies on a harbour and again was a really nice city. Here we took in the Museum called Te Papa, which took up a whole day, the volcano and earthquake sections being the most interesting for me, as its so applicable to NZ. Scarily they get over 15,000 earthquakes a year, mostly deep underground, in Te Papa they have a monitor that shows when the last earthquake occurred, which was a few days earlier at that time. NZ lies right on a tectonic plate and whilst we were in NZ they had several earthquakes, when they reach about 5 on the rictor scale it's a news story, the rest go unreported, but we didn't feel any. Another day we walked around the botanical gardens after taking the cable car up to them.
C-Here I come
The highlight here however, was taking a segway tour around the city, we were the only two on the tour, along the harbour front, past parliament and to a pretty wooden church, which were all very interesting but the best bit was riding on the segways. Despite the tour not being that new, we attracted a lot of attention as if we were flying around on space ships. Our guide gave us a little lesson on the segway and they are pretty easy to drive. We were so taken by the segway we even talked about setting up segway tours back home, but we are together for 24/7 so we talk a lot of rubbish sometimes and its different from talking about marriage and babies, which comes up frequently and we always come to the decision of 'Not right now, maybe not ever'.
After a fun few days in Wellington, we boarded the ferry to cross the Cooks Strait with our car, which takes 3.5 hours to reach the South Island. After spending one night in Picton, the closest town as you leave the ferry we headed through the wine region of Marlborough to Kaikoura on the east coast. On the way we stopped for lunch in a picturesque spot, which is not hard to find in New Zealand there's usually one round every corner. So picture this, us in our family wagon, or passion wagon as someone called it, pulled up onto what is the hard shoulder of the road, sea directly below, watching the abundance of seals with our flask of soup, it's an easy life here!
Generally our drives were a few hours a day to get to our next destination , taking in a walk along the way to a nice viewpoint or waterfall.
D-Concentrating hard
The roads were strangely quiet, I had to keep reminding myself that NZ only have 4.4 million people and its not that much smaller, if at all, than the UK. Kaikoura is popular for its whale watching, as you don't need to travel far off land to see them. The reason behind this is about 10 minutes from land you hit a continental shelf and it suddenly plunges to 800 metres providing a large supply of food for the whales. So we set off early morning on our boat to find some whales. Sperm whales to be exact and my interesting fact on these creatures is that when first discovered they were found to have an oily liquid in their heads and it was decided this must be sperm, therefore giving them their name, however, they later examined a female sperm whale, which was found to also have the liquid in her head, therefore dispelling the theory that it was sperm. We were really lucky getting to see 5 whales, they go under water for about an hour to feed, before coming up for approx 10 mins, so it's a small time span to get to see them, but our crew had numerous ways to find the whales. You don't get to see a lot of them, as they just sit with their blow hole out of the water and don't expose much more so its difficult to appreciate how large these creatures are, in addition the boats don't get too close as its unfair on the whales. The best bit however is when they take their last breath to go down again and they push their tale up in the air, its all very graceful.
From Kaikoura we went onto Christchurch, where we stayed for a few days. Here we visited the Antarctic centre, which was pretty interesting, we got to experience a staged storm at -18 wind chill, burrrh! We did a self guided walking tour or 'Toby tour' around the city, which we try to do in most cities as it usually takes in the main attractions and helps to work off all the pies we've eaten. Christchurch is an arty place and we visited the art gallery which was a little alternative and didn't float our boat at all. The weather here was still not so great and one night it rained and hailed severely, we were pleased we'd made the decision to not put up the tent. Christchurch left me a little under whelmed, mainly I think as it lacked atmosphere due to the lack of people, as much as the small population has its pros, it can also make a city feel a little dull. Also, we liked to try to do different activities rather than the same things just in a different city and Christchurch offered much of the same things we'd seen before. However, before we left we had a night out, watching some rugby on the telly in a bar, which had a good Friday night atmosphere.
Part 3 coming soon...........
