First stop on the long drive to "ChCh" were the Moeraki boulders. As you can see in the above picture, these rocks are unusually round. This is the result of the pressurization of calcium deposits in the ground that, over time, have become exposed due to erosion. Well, I actually don't know how they were formed or why they are round (because I didn't read the handy little sheet) but the above is courtesy of Cat, who did read it.
Here I am gazing out at the horizon and contemplating New Zealand's isolation. In fact, the closest land mass in the direction I'm looking is probably South America. That's a long way out there... Oh, and damn that's a nice pair of Emerald Oakleys I'm wearing... Come to think of it, I've got a nice adidas ClimaWarm Fleece Pullover on too... Oh, and thanks to Lily for the Chicken sandwich in my hand.
To give you a vague idea about how big some of these boulders are, you can sorta tell in the above picture. All of us were able to fit on top of the boulder without too much trouble. Ryan is in the back and Cat, Me & Lily (flatmate) are in the front.
Here we are re-enacting the birth of an alien (or dinosaur) from the boulder. Not much more can be said...
Here's a close up of one of the boulders. Look how unbelievably round it is! Mother Nature works in beautiful, yet mysterious ways.
Here is our glorious, "bling bling" ride: A 5 spd, 2000 Holden Barina City, with a monstrous 1.4 L engine, in a champagne lime green (if you have a better description of the colour of the car, please let me know). She was all bark and no bite on hills but she roared to life on the flat. Many a car was passed while driving up SH 1 on the Canterbury Plains.
5 hours or so later, we arrived in ChCh an hour before the test match. W thought it would be a good idea to figure out what the deal with the concert was so Ryan hopped out and asked around. He found out that tickets were a mere NZ$42 which turned out to be a bit out of our price range (no offense to the Blackseeds). Then, we decided we would figure out lodging. After 3 rejections, we landed an 8 bunk room at the 4th hostel we visited. More on our "exciting" hostel experience later...
In the hostel lobby, we saw this awesome posting for a used vehicle (since I'd still like to get a car of my own here). I'll let the image speak for itself.
During check in, the game was well underway and by the time we made it to Dux de Lux, an amazing vegetable/seafood restaurant, for dinner, it was 17-12 to the AB's and Cap'n Tana was back from the "sin bin." Lucky for us, Dux de Lux had a big projection tv outside where we were able to enjoy the NZ victory and our vegetable lasagna. Afterwards...
We walked over to the Holy Grail...aka "the place we should've watched the test at." Not only did they have a huge movie theater-sized main screen and a ton of Canterbury/Crusader memorabilia, they had this cool thing. Canterbury lock Chris Jack stands a shade over 2 meters tall. Cat doesn't quite make the 2 meter mark...but that doesn't mean she can't be a great halfback in rugby (c'mon...you're in NZ, at least give rugby a go...).
After standing around outside the place where the Blackseeds were gonna play (we were looking for cheaper tix but, unfortunately, they had door sales so scalpers were nowhere to be found). Since we still didn't want to cough up NZ$42 per person, we decided maybe the Blackseeds concert wasn't for us. We then drove around Christchurch looking for something to do and we ended up deciding that bowling might be a good idea. Unfortunately, we were given many different directions to this mythical bowling alley which we thought we had seen but was nowhere near where we thought we saw it.
At first, we thought the big cinema/entertainment center might have the bowling alley inside, but the security guard told us to head down the road. Following his instructions, we ended up at the above. Personally, it was a highlight to be able to visit (albeit outside) one of the hallowed grounds of World Rugby. I've been to Eden Park (another GREAT ground), I'll have the chance to go to Carisbrook (the legendary "House of Pain" here in Dunedin) and, to a lesser greatness extent, I've been in North Harbour Stadium. Jade Stadium, home of the dominant Canterbury and Crusader teams is a really, really special place to be. Lucky for us, we also saw a couple of kids riding a bike who were able to give us proper directions to the bowling alley.
So we bowled a game at the very modern bowling alley (that's Lily in the pic). It was pretty fun to do the bowling thing after quite a long hiatus (they closed Bowl-o-drome back home and I haven't seen my bowling partners in a while). We've all vowed to become better bowlers as the semester progresses and we'll have to head down to the local lanes (wherever they are...hopefully they're easier to find) regularly to make that happen.
Lastly, we ended up in the hostel lounge with a liter of hokey pokey ice cream, wedges and a lot of creativity. With that one container, who knew you could not only feed your hunger and addiction for ice cream, specifically hokey pokey, but you could also experience sport, art, comedy and many other assorted entertaining things. A "This is Fun" tournament, "This is Art" and Hokey Pokey racing and diving events punctuated a great night in ChCh (hopefully I can upload a video for you all to see what I mean). If I can look forward to fun times like this road trip to Christchurch, I know this is gonna be a great semester!
Just when we thought the night was over, our bunk mates arrived from a night of fun. 3 Northern Irishmen came in and, much to our dismay, the light didn't go off till 2 hours after our original designated sleep time. Apparently, "Diddly Dee Potatoes" is a very typical Irish phrase which our bunkmates took 5 whole minutes to constantly remind us. They were pretty disruptive, to say the least, but it was pretty fun meeting them. Needless to say, we were all pretty tired on the drive back to Dunedin but we made it back in good time and without any pitstops (no bathroom breaks, tea breaks or things of the like).
Because you all are so grand, I'll toss in this one random pic from this evening, in my flat, that just happened to be on my mobile phone when I uploaded the rest of these pics. If I haven't mentioned already, Dunedin is COLD. Furthermore, my flat is cold (the inside that is). In the above pic, Jennifer & Cat are so cold that they must stand near the heater (which has the range of a broken potato gun) in order to warm themselves. How sad. Earlier in the day, when I tried to take a nap (in case you're curious, I was unsuccessful), I could see my breath condensing...this, mind you, was in my bedroom!
Anyways, classes begin tomorrow and I think I'll start my job search tomorrow too. More to come from Dunedin at a later date. I hope you all are doing well and continue to take care of yourselves and one another. Peace out homeys!
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3 comments:
Poor Cat... so cold... Awww
what great pictures!! looks like you're having an awesome time! i see that you got yourself a nice warm coat. :-) we'll be up there soon! our friend says that you can stay down there with us in her lodge. i'm not sure how your schedule looks with school and everything. we can chat about visiting later. :-)
take care!!
Aww, Cat looks so sad in that last pic! x)
Anyway, sounds like you guys got a good deal down there in NZ; I wish (sometimes) I were out there, too!
Pet a Kiwi for me.
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