NZ +25: So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!

So, with only a few days left, we have to pack in as much as possible, so today was a journey out to Akaroa, which looks quite close to Christchurch on the map...



...but is 80km away on windy mountainous roads and takes about an hour and a half to get to.

It's a pretty little town, on the shores of a lake formed by a collapsed volcano crater (aren't they all here??)...



...colonised by the French and the British, so loads of the streets are Rue This and Rue That, and every hotel or guest house has come up with some poncy French name. Some of them have even researched how to spell the words properly.

We were here to do a Black Cat Harbour Cruise and we were promised that if we didn't see dolphins, we got our money back.

Well, the departure building (and obligatory gift shop) had dolphins painted on the roof...



...and I thought we might be in for a whole Kaikoura/Whale experience again, but we set off down the harbour, getting a good view of the town...



Apparently, the population of Akaroa is roughly 400, but swells to about 4,000 during the summer as a result of people having their holiday homes here. Only 30% of the houses in the town are occupied all year round. The area in the picture above, called The Glen by locals, has only five houses that people actually live in as their first home. It's a bit like Cornwall.

Further down the harbour we went, looking at intersting volcanic rock formations on the way...



...and Maori villages in valleys running down to the water's edge...



There was time to experiment with the different modes on the camera to make the rock formations look more interesting...



(they were actually quite interesting anyway!)

...and then, shapes in the water. Was this a dolphin??



Well actually, yes it was. It was several. About 20 altogether. They are special dolphins that you only get here, called New Zealand Dolphins, surprisingly. They're also called Hector Dolphins and they are about 1.2 - 1.4m long. A whole bunch of them swam right by the boat for about 15 minutes...



Now, what on earth you were supposed to do on dolphin-watching expeditions before digital cameras came along, I have no idea. I took about 100 photos in just over ten minutes, in the hope that some of them would show dolphins leaping gracefully out of the water. If I'd had an old 24 exposure film camera, I doubt whether I would have anything to show, wildlife-wise, for my two hours on the water. As it was, I got a few good photos and the experience was really exciting and uplifting!



(Didn't have camera handy when they went through hoops and balanced beach balls on their noses. Take my word for it...)

NZ +25: An Informed View...

I have finished reading Justin Brown's book about the UK from a Kiwi Perspective. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I might, partly because quite a lot of it was told in dialogue, which, unless he had a dictaphone going at all times, could not have been authentic; and partly because when he had almost got enough money to return back home, he was invited onto Richard and Judy and they let him keep his money and gave him an open air ticket back. Which rather felt like the reader had been cheated.

Anyway, I'm now reading...



...which I bought in Waterstones before I left, but was determined not to read until the last week of being here because I wanted to be able to relate to the places he was describing. He's a 45 year-old British ex-pat who has never quite got around to going back to the UK and has been in NZ for 15 years. His thinks his dog only has a few months to live and so then he won't have any ties here. He hitches round the country randomly, going where his lifts take him and tries to convince himself that he wants to stay. Will let you know how it turns out.

NZ +24: The Island

We went to the cinema again last night. (Did I already mention we had been to see The Fantasic Four? Which wasn't that Fantastic...)

Well, tonight we went to see The Island, with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johananhansssonnn (who appears to have no discernable acting talent).



Certainly not what I expected. If I were the people who made The Matrix or, for those of us who are a little older, Logan's Run, I would be suing.

Has anyone else seen it? What did you think?

NZ +24: Is it cold in here, or is it me...?

We've been off into the chilly wastelands of Antarctica today! (Apparently if you go there really, it takes 8½ hours in a Hercules, so we opted for nearly going there instead.)

What we actually did was go back to the airport! It's from Christchurch Airport that most flights to the Antarctic leave. There is even a passenger terminal...



...but you don't need a passport because Antarctica doesn't belong to any one country. It's administered by a treaty signed by lots of nations so, if you withstand the sub-zero temperatures and look good in a parka, you can go.

This part of the airport is surrounded by big hangars looking like this...



...which is where the store all the parkas.

And (this is the bit we really went to see) they have created a Visitor Centre...



...opened by Sir Edmund Hilary who, as a New Zealander and conqueror of Everest and first man to go mechanised to the South Pole, is a bit of celebrity here.

Anyhow, inside, you see lots of audio-visual things and there are buttons to press and there's a huge orrery. I bet some of you have to look that up.

But you also get to go to the Antarctic in a little room. They give you special covers to put over your shoes and a big fleece and then shut you in a large freezer done up to look like the South Pole. (A bit like the Ice Bar in Queenstown, but without the vodka.)

You can ride on a snowmobile...



(Please note the ultra realsitic backdrop!)


...and you can go in an igloo...



(...some of which is obviously made of plastic.)

And then they make it go very dark and turn on these special wind chill fans, and suddenly, it gets what can only be described as "bloody freezing". There are no pohots of that bit, because my fingers would have dropped off - the special thermometer in there got down to -18ºC. I don't think I'm quite cut out for polar exploration, although I did like the next bit...

They have retired one of these...



...which has a special name I can't remember, and they put you in it and take you round the car park. Which is all very fine, but then they take you on the specially designed obstacle course too...



...and then down a Very Steep Hill...



...and then through 1m of water...



...and then, fortunately, back to the safety of the car park!

NZ +24: Things NZ gets right... and wrong... (4)

I don't know if you would call this right or wrong, but it's certainly different and more American than it is British. You can choose your own car number plate here, and it can be anything you like. It doesn't have to have a fixed number of numbers and letters or any numbers at all.

Consequently, in a fairly small car park at the very nice garden centre where we had lunch today, you can see...



...and...



...and...



As you can see from the last one, you seem able to add your own words and letters to make phrases. It's turned into a game now (a) spotting them - we saw SPINE, which was the number plate of a mobile chiropractor, but didn't have a camera handy - and (b) deciding what your own might be...

NZ +24: Easy like Sunday morning...

Right, anyone who knows me knows that I am not one to lay around in bed when there is stuff to be done, so I'd done some stuff before anyone else got up this morning. We have three and a half days left around Christchurch and we want to go on the Trans-Alpine train and do some horse riding, amongst other things. So, I went to the information centre and picked up all the leaflets and also managed to find a few more bits of Christchurch I can share with you.

First of all, New Zealanders obviously share my sense of humour...



...and secondly, satellite dishes have to be much bigger in the southern hemisphere to pick up the full range of channels...



...not really. Although they do all point north, rather than pointing south like they do at home. The sun is also always in the north, which would be weird if being conscious of which way north actually was was a preoccupation. Which it isn't. Oh, and the water doesn't go down the plug hole in the opposite direction, just to shatter another myth. That's an old wives' tale.

Anyway, there is an interseting memorial garden to fire fighters in the city, with this sculpture...





Which would be lovely, but the paving slabs in the garden are all sponsored and have advertising on them. Like this one...



...which sits uncomfortably with the theme of the scuplture.

I also found two more statues of conquerors and subjugators. Which I suppose is better than finding statues of conjugators...

Victoria looks a bit stern...



...but then she is probably not finding anything funny.

And James Cook...



...well, there goes my brown cheesy in Trivial Pursuit down the drain again. He has a mountain named after him. He lived in Whitby. Tell me more, someone!

And, by the way, the tram goes through a shopping centre...



Cool! (Or, just possibly, dangerous...)

NZ +23: Wellington to Christchurch

This was probably one of our longest journeys - it meant being up at 6.30. Which was fine by me but seemed to be a major problem for everyone else.

We were in Wellington at the quayside by 8.30, just in time to watch the Arahura come in to dock...



While we were waiting, we were reading the paper, and discovered that we had survived an earthquake the night before...



Admittedly, it was only a little one, and we were staying with Robin and Maureen whose house is so close to the railway line that the house shakes every time some moderate amount of freight comes through, so we probably didn't notice...

Now, the Wellington fault line runs right along the edge of the harbour, but undaunted, we got on the ferry anyway and you've already seen photos of that from when we travelled South to North, so I won't bore you with any more. Oh, go on then...



The ferry is great, just like a cross-channel ferry in size and shape, but loads more to see...



And then it was the long drag back to Christchurch...

Now, not far south from where the ferry docks at Picton is a small place called Seddon. Possibly named after a former NZ Prime Minister - a lot of places seem to be. It's a very non-descript place, but it does have the distinction of possessing a very scary looking (and crossing) bridge...



The railway line goes above the road and the road is a single track made of... wood. This, I will remind you, is State Highway 1...



There were long sections where the road deck had been replaced, or fixed back into position with huge metal bolts sticking up, which you had to swerve to avoid. I half expected any train running across the top to have hundreds of people sitting on its roof.

And then if that wasn't enough, to add to the earthquake and the third-world bridge, we had a volcano.



And if you think I am making this up, well actually I am. It was just controlled burning. Although the meaning of the word "controlled" is obviously somewhat different in the southern hemisphere. I am thinking of Photoshopping this onto the one of Mount Doom from yesterday and setting myself up as a digital effects guru (geek) ready for any fourth movie in the trilogy.

And the sun setting through the smoke was lovely...



It's great to be back with Nessie, and we all deserve a quiet day tomorrow. Which I'm sure we'll have!

NZ +22: Reading now...

Just a few more minutes left to tell you that as a Englishman touring NZ, I thought it best to find out what someone who did it the other way round thought, so I'm reading...



...the cover of which doesn't look like this on the NZ version. He's a Kiwi who loses a bet and has to earn his fare back to NZ by busking round the UK. He's already slagged off Swindon, which I don't mind per se, but he's going to Nottingham next, so he had better say nice things...

NZ +22: Wellington Chocolate and Update

This gets 8/10...



...because...

• it tasted very nice
• it came in a big tall glass
• it has a knicker-bocker glory spoon
• it was accompanied by three marshmallows (have eaten them in picture...)

There has been nothing higher than an 8 yet, and we only have 6 days left. But I am an eternal optimist!

And just a quick mention that for regular readers, I botched up the dates on the last few blog entries and have added some extra bits to a few now I have photos, so you may want to look again at the last few days...

NZ +22: Lord of the Things (3) and southwards...

Just when you thought you'd avoided it all, State Highway 1 south through the Tongariro National Park takes you past...



...Mount Doom! (Mount Ngauruhoe, actually).

It's actually a stunning sight from the Desert Road, as it's called. And if that weren't enough, there is the slightly higher, and more cloud-obscured Mount Ruapehu..



And then we hit Vinegar Hill, which was less snowcapped, but you could see further and as far as I know, it hasn't featured in any dwarf'n'elves films...



This view is very important, because in it are several of the best preseverved formed river plateaus in the world. But I bet you knew that.

And then just before we got back to Wellington, we had lunch in Palmerston North. Probably named after a Lord Palmer, someone will tell me, it had the distinction of being a featureless city with shops...



A bit like Portsmouth. It even has its own Tricorn Centre...



I'm being a bit cruel, because it also has some very fine art deco architecture (somewhere - didn't see any of it) and is a big student town so "buzzin'", apparently.

And I suppose the town square is impressive...



...and the sky really was that blue today!

Staying in Wellington tonight and it's an early start for the ferry back to South Island tomorrow!