Christchurch (part II)

Picking up where I left off... (Sunday & Monday, 21-22 Oct)

Erik and I hitched ride with Mona to town to do some sightseeing on Sunday.

We started at the Arts Centre, which was actually the same area where we went to see the Glass Menagerie. During the day on Sundays there is a nice outdoor market with food and arts/crafts. They also had some live music in one of the courtyards -

And here is a statue that I really liked - if I had written this entry more timely, then I would remember what it symbolized or paid tribute to... however I do know that it is a Maori sculpture. Erik and I hope to take some time to visit some of the Maori heritage sites in the future.
After the market we made our way towards the city center - this is a picture of the Avon River, which runs through town.
Naturally, we couldn't go to Christchurch without seeing the church - here is Cathedral Square with the Christchurch Cathedral (built in 1865).
And one of my favorite stained-glass windows:
After spending the afternoon in the city sight-seeing, we walked over to our rental car agency. It wasn't too far of a walk, but it was really nice to see some more of the city. Everyone around here says that Christchurch is the "most British" area of New Zealand. I definitely agree. These buildings reminded me of London, however there were significantly fewer people on the street!
Since we picked up the car somewhat late, we decided to keep close to Jorgen and Mona's so we could be on time for dinner with Aunt Charlotte. We were also a bit tired from our busy day on Saturday (Jorgen really wore us out!) ... so we decided to take the gondola up to Mt. Cavendish Reserve.
I took this picture from the gondola - it reminded me of the Rimutaka Hill road that we took on our first weekend trip, except this road has a straight portion AND a guardrail! I also took this picture because I loved the scenery beyond the curve (which is the estuary of the Avon and Heathcote Rivers).
The views from Mt. Cavendish were amazing - this is Lyttelton Harbor. The harbor used to be a crater lake which eventually eroded until it joined the ocean. Hard to imagine that the entire area is the result of a volcano.
Oh, and this is me at the gondola gift shop - I was bored... but had no problem entertaining myself!
A picture of us in with Lyttelton Bay in the background -
And on a hike along part of the Crater Rim walkway -
Here is a photo of looking down towards Christchurch - those are the Southern Alps in the way background. And don't miss the cyclists coming up the mountain - I see people riding like this all over New Zealand. It's amazing how fit some of these athletes are - I recommend the gondola.

Monday we headed over to the Banks Peninsula... for those of you that are somewhat familiar with NZ, the Banks Peninsula is the little bump on the east coast of the South Island. Like I mentioned earlier, this entire area was formed by two giant volcanic eruptions. This is a photo of the map at the gondola gift shop - hopefully it helps give you a feel for what I am talking about...

Note - The "You are here" is the gondola shop at Mt. Cavendish, which overlooks Lyttleton Harbour.

Note - The large blue bay at the bottom of the map is Akaroa.

Before driving down into Akaroa Harbour we spent some time on the summit road there - and look at what I found! I just love these little lambs.
Here are a couple pictures of Akaroa Harbour - everything was very blue, but I think this picture looks a little too blue, but believe me, it was gorgeous!
(I love all the hillsides here...)

Our plan for the day was to take the catamaran cruise out into the bay... things were up in the air for awhile since it was really windy, but we had a nice time walking around town. Akaroa is actually the site of the first French settlement in NZ - I'd say they picked a good spot (in fact, if not for some quick thinking by the British to plant their flag in Akaroa just before the French arrived, the South Island may have ended up as a French colony).
Thankfully the wind died down a little bit - emphasis on little - and we were able to do the cruise. The cruise was a couple hours long and took us from the dock to the harbour entrance, and back.

This is the photo while we were on our way out towards the Pacific Ocean. The trip was great when we were moving along, but when the captain stopped, it was less than pleasant for me. He let us bob up and down (and up and down) while everyone scrambled to take pictures of Hector dolphins and fur seals. The wildlife was really cool, but once I had seen it, I was ready to fire up the engine again and get moving. Instead, we stuck around... I think this is one of the last photos I took the rest of the day - which means that I really must not have been feeling very well because I love to take pictures. I know that the water does not look very rough, but I was feeling every wave...
See? Even though I am smiling, I am very uncomfortable here.
At this point I went to the back of the boat and down the steps and tried to relax... by the time we made it back to Jorgen and Mona's (which included an hour-long nap in the car) I was feeling better. Sorry, no pictures of the ocean wildlife from me - but I am sure there will be others in the future.

Take care everyone!

Christchurch (part I)

For the Labour Weekend (Oct 19-22) we ventured down to Christchurch to visit Erik's family. It was great to finally meet Jorgen & Mona, especially after hearing all about them from Erik and Carsten.

We were able to do a lot while we were down there, so I have split this trip up into two posts...

Jorgen is also the Danish Consulate for the South Island. From talking with him, this means that he helps Danish citizens living or visiting NZ, entertains/hosts important visitors, and a variety of other things. It's not a full-time position like the ambassador, but it seems to keep him busy when he is not tied up at his real job. It also means that they have this awesome seal outside their house .
We arrived rather late on Friday night, but on Saturday we had a reasonably early start to check out the Craigieburn Range (which we could see from the Schousboe's porch!). Jorgen drove us out on some of the backroads, and on our way we passed through the Rakaia Gorge.

This is looking to the left (from the bridge)
And this one is looking straight-ahead / to the right

At this point we turned off of the paved road and spent the rest of our time on gravel/dirt roads. It was so nice of Jorgen to take us out, plus he knew exactly where is was going, well most of the time :) , so there wasn't anything for me and Erik to do except take in the sights and listen to some of Jorgen's stories. I really enjoyed hearing about when Erik's family used to live here or hearing about all the trouble that Carsten used to get into!

By the way, this area was about an hour outside of Christchurch.

The weather looked a little dicey as we were approaching the mountains, (notice the shift from blue sky to clouds in this picture) - but that didn't stop us!
Sure enough, not long after we pulled away from the Rakaia Gorge is started to rain. But neither rain nor fence held us back -

I am pretty sure he was thinking, "This rain is cold, and you two are just sitting there, warm and dry inside the car, laughing at me, and now I see you are taking my picture. Awesome." Ha!

We drove a little further to check out Lake Coleridge. Even though the weather wasn't cooperating, you can still see that the lake is this amazing blue... if it had been a clear day, you would be able to see snow-capped mountains on the other side of the lake.
Then we took a break and had lunch at the Schousboe's cabin in Castle Hill. Our lunch was delicious - real apple juice, pate, pastrami & Danish cheese. Yum!

Within minutes of finishing lunch, the sky cleared. I was really excited about this and proceeded to take an obscene number of photos.

This one was just behind the cabin -
And here's another one I took from inside the car -

And then we arrived at our next destination, the Cave Stream Scenic Reserve - a 596m long limestone cave. This is Erik and Jorgen walking down towards the river basin. If you look at the bottom right you can see where the underwater river comes out of the cave (it's a little hard to see because it is shaded). We did not go into the cave - it sounded a little too cold for our taste.
This picture was taken looking in the other direction, but halfway down the slope to the creek -

And this one was taken at the park entrance (there's a tiny sign in there at the bottom) -

Then we headed over to Kura Tawhiti Conservation Area. All of these limestone boulders used to be on the bottom of the ocean, and now here they are - that's me trying to climb up. In case you were wondering, that is about as far as I got...
But these people were far more successful (see some people walking with a big red things strapped on the one guy's back? The red thing is a mat they put down on the ground wherever they are rock climbing.) Climbers are not permitted to use any equipment in order to preserve the area - not even cleats on their shoes.
And I took this picture because I would like to live on this farm - looks like a sweet gig to me!

No clouds near the top this time, so, guess what I did? I took yet another picture.
After the limestone boulders at Kura Tawhiti we headed back to Christchurch. This is the main road heading back to Christchurch (instead of the gravel ones we took on our way up) - it was amazing how quickly we were out of the mountains and back on flat land. (Christchurch is flat as a pancake - with the exception of a few spots which will be in my next post.)
Once back in town we had a lovely meal at home with Mona, then the four of us went to see Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie at the local theater. It was a lot of fun, and we were very, very impressed by the Southern accents. It felt like I was watching the play in Missouri!

======================

Hope all is well with everyone - I hope to post about the second half of our trip soon!