The road to Christchurch and then back to Auckland

Back to the days of early starts! After a few days at Mount Cook, an 8am bus was not the nicest option! The trip through Canterbury was not overly exciting, with a gentle rolling landscape reminiscent of England.
 The hostel was very removed from the actual township, a nice peaceful location in the countryside, and I took advantage of the surrounds by doing an hour long horse trek.
 The next morning the bus was at 7am, for my final stint on the Stray Bus.

 Would I recommend them? There's definitely ups and downs, and it depends on how you want to see the country.
 If you're on your own, or only have a small amount of time, then they are useful, they take you to some amazing places, and their whole motto is to get "off the beaten track" (although with thousands of tourists a year going on the Stray bus, I wonder how beaten the track is getting...)

 I think I would have preferred to drive New Zealand. While the country does have a good selection of buses to get you to places (not just tour companies, but national express type equivalents as well), a car would allow you to get to almost completely isolated places (and not have to get up at stupid o'clock!!)

 It is also good for meeting new Germans...I mean people, which is obviously good if you're travelling on your own, and the fact you can organise activities directly through them helps save on the planning. Sometimes its just nice to be told what to do! (Especially at 7am in the morning).

The hop on - hop off system  is brilliant as well, as it means you don't have to rush around like a crazy fool if you don't want to, and stay to enjoy a spot you really like some more instead.

 The only thing I would say to people is to look at other hostel options. Stray guarantees your first night's accommodation at the location you are staying at, but that might not always be at the cheapest or nicest option. They always use a BASE hostel, which is horrible. I don't mean dirty (necessarily), but the Base franchise is a soulless money grabbing place, generally with no character. It's very easy to find nicer, more interesting hostels!

So....  on we went to Christchurch.

  For those who don't know, in September 2010, Canterbury suffered a 7.1 scale Earthquake, causing a lot of damage to buildings throughout the region, but no fatalities. On February 22nd 2011, a 6.3 magnitude quake stuck about 10km outside of Christchurch. This one has pretty much destroyed the central city, and 185 people lost their lives because of it.
 So the city itself is still a bit of a building site, to put it nicely. 2 years on, the central city is still closed to the public (except for a bus tour, which I took), lots of buildings are waiting to be brought down, and the CBD  (central business district) is going to be about 70% smaller when they've finished and rebuilt. So you can see a lot of this:

Christchurch Cathedral, which a battle is being fought over at the moment as to if it should be torn down and rebuilt, or restored

The site of the Canterbury Television Building, which was completely destroyed in the Quake, causing a lot of the 185 fatalities

This is a sign from the search and rescue teams who explored the city for people who  may have still been in buildings.  not sure about the TF, but the top figure was the date, showing when the building had been searched. You can find these marks all over the central city  and surrounds.

Front of the Cathedral

There's also the highly moving piece of art that is serving as a temporary memorial to the victims, called 185 chairs:
 

 
Each of the chairs was chosen by a family member of the victims, each different to reflect the different personality. There's a baby carrier in the front row which is obviously quite poignant.

So after taking a wander and seeing all of these ruins, and then doing the Earthquake museum, I was feeling a bit gloomy to say the least. It can be easy to get depressed here, but after a few days it's also easy to see the spirit of the people still living here.

 There's an initiative called Gap-filler, which is making the effort to find temporary uses for the spaces caused by the demolition and destruction. One of my favourites is the Pallet Pavilion;

As you can see, it's made of pallets, and the odd plastic box. There's a little coffee shop in there, and some food stalls as well. They also turn it in to a bar at the weekends, with live music. So little places have popped up all over the city; there's a book exchange in a fridge, some mini golf holes, and a range of things. If you wanted to have a look, go to www.gapfiller.org.nz
 
  Near the centre of the city, there's also the Re:start mall, which has been built out of shopping containers. It's bright and colourful, (a nice contrast to the destruction outside), and usually full of people.

There is also a topiary snake, some Penguins, and probably more I didn't spot!

 Events still carry on as well; there's lots of gigs spread throughout the suburbs of the city, and the stadium is still open; Santana played the day before I left. Even though the art gallery is closed, there's also alot of artwork that has been placed outside around the city. You can get a map and do the trail if you want to.
 There seems to be a good spirit in the people who live here, ones wanting to carry and with their lives and get the city back on it's feet.


  So  now I'm back in Auckland, having flown directly from Christchurch, and I'm staying with some friends that I used to live with. It's quite odd being back, especially as I  only have a couple of weeks until I fly out to Australia.

 For those who don't know the plan; I'm off to Perth to work. I'm looking at being in Australia for a year or two (still undecided but I like to take my time), before doing an epic road trip back through Asia and Europe before eventually getting home. When I  got out here almost a  year and a half ago now, I didn't know what to expect really. I won't lie and say I've loved every minute, but I have enjoyed  myself alot, and am looking forward to more adventures (as long as I don't melt or get killed by something deadly in Australia). Of course I'd recommend that you should go travelling here if you asked, here or anywhere. My biggest advice? It is what you make it.

Thanks for reading this (if you haven't just looked at the pictures), as I'm going to be working in Perth to start with, I doubt I'll be doing a blog for a while.... but I'm sure there will be bugsysaussieadventure.blogspot.com.au before too long......

From Wanaka to Queenstown, and on to Mount Cook

On the road again!

 After working in Wanaka for two months or so, I've now started on the final leg of my New Zealand Journey.

 First Stop, Queenstown, only about 100k away from Wanaka, so thankfully, not a long bus journey! Getting to Queenstown was quite a culture shock, as within 5 minutes or so, I'd already seen more people than you'd see in Wanaka in two days.
 As I said at the end of the last entry, I came to Queenstown for a weekend last May, so had already done alot of activities in the area. With two nights (so one full day),  I decided to have a nice relaxing time, and spent most of my time on the full day in Arrowtown. Getting back to Queenstown in the late afternoon, it was a bit grey and murky, so the photos didn't do the place it's full justice. No worries! I took some back in May, so will put them together.

 Originally a town made for the gold rush, Queenstown now boasts that it's the adventure capital of the world. It's got the Original site of commercial bungy jumping (and a couple of others), and is a popular destination for Skiers in the winter. Like Wanaka, it's got lots of mountains surrounding it, including the range called the Remarkables;

Now (March)

Back in May

The reason they're called the Remarkables is simple; they run directly from North to South. Or South to  North depending on where you're standing. Remarkable!
 While I didn't do anything adventurous this time, back in May we did a whole heap of stuff, all free thanks to work at the time!
 This is a link to one of the things I did, which was probably my favourite;

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzhAMscTxyc

So Arrowtown is a small little village near Queenstown, again created due to the gold rush down here. There's even a preserved Chinese village from a load of miners that came over. My first stop was to get the best pie in the world though. A Lamb and mint pie from the Arrowtown bakery. You have to come here and get one if you get the chance.

So good, I took a photo.

 I then took a walk along the beautiful Arrow river and the town itself. There's not much to do here, but it's a beautiful spot. Good retirement option....

So after two nights here, it was back to getting up early... I had not missed these day, especially as I'd been back in the life of barwork... get up late, sleep late. But we headed to what I think is one of the more beautiful spots in the country.....

Mt. Cook

So Mount Cook is the highest peak in New Zealand, and it's also where Edmund Hillay (The first guy to climb Everest) did a lot of his practicing. He was a Kiwi if you didn't know, and there's a little museum dedicated to him at the complex where our hostel was for the night.
 It was unfortunatley another rubbish view from the hostel window (with  balcony) ...

The complex and roads are in the valley that used to be part of the glacier. On my first full day here I did a walk down the Hooker Valley to a glacial lake that comes from Mt. Cook, and it's a wierd feeling to walk down a place that you know was just ice a longtime ago. Good walk to a lake created by the glacier though...

Not Mt. Cook, but there were a few Glacier fed lakes and rivers around

Bouncy Bridges over rivers and big drops seems to be a New Zealand Standard. 

And to prove I'm actually here for all you doubters, here's me at the end of the track, about to ignore a recommendation (like everyother person who was doing the walk):

The big glacier fed lake under Mount Cook. You can see the ice in the water still on the right hand side. Worth ignoring a sign for I think!

On of the nights I was there, I also did a star gazing trip to get used to the Southern Hemisphere a bit more. Anyone from the Oswestry area who's been out in to the country would be familar with the amount of stars you could get here, but it was still beautiful. The whole of the Mount Cook area is a light pollution reserve, so it's always good for viewing!
 
 I may have watched a Champions League football match during my stay here, but I won't talk about that...
 
 

From Abel Tasman to Blackball, Franz Josef and Wanaka

So yes, it has been a while. Not all of the time since I last posted has been having crazy adventures I'm afraid, but I've still been enjoying myself immensely. Get the kettle on if you haven't already.

 So after leaving Abel Tasman, we travelled to Blackball, a true little West Coast town;

Where the A is. Thanks Google Maps.

 Now, the only reason this place is a tourist destination was because we were the tourists. There are only a few hundred people who live here, and the place we stayed in was the only pub. The Former Hilton (After the threat of being sued by the actual Hilton hotel chain!).
  Now I'm of the belief that there are stories that will always stick with you even if they have no relation to your life (that might even be the reason for some), and one of those stories is here for me.
 A few months after the Chilean Mining disaster, where the 33 miners were all successfully rescued, a similar disaster struck the Pike River mine, which for the main part was worked by locals, namely from Blackball.
 You may not of heard about this one, didn't see the pictures of the dramatic rescue of the 29 miners, but that's because there wasn't one.
 On the 19th November 2010, there were explosions and the miners were trapped inside (one of whom had celebrated his 17th birthday the day before). Because of the risk of gases, rescue attempts were delayed and delayed, and the bodies of those 29 people are still there to this day, despite promises from the Government to help, aid and recover them. Now there are various reasons for this, no doubt justified reasons, and of course there was (from all reports) a brilliant community spirit with aid coming from Australia as well as all over New Zealand as part of the rescue attempts. The contrast between the highly televised Chilean rescue and the relatively unknown disaster here struck me heavily.
  All of this history was in a section of the Former Hilton, who had put up volunteers and rescue workers for free of charge during the emergency.

 Sorry to be so gloomy, but as I say it's stuck with me, and I feel it should be shared! If you do want to read about it yourself, here's the wikipedia link to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_River_Mine_disaster

Anyway, the next day we made our way down the west coast to Franz Josef glacier, stopping plenty of times to admire the beautiful scenery;

What did we see on the rocks?

Seals!

The Pancake rocks... I wasn't sure where they bought their pancakes from...

But I think it's because of the way they are all stacked....

We also stopped at the bushman centre to learn a bit about hunting in the West Coast. Now Possums and Deer were released in the wild in New Zealand with the arrival of settlers to the West Coast. Possums became massive pests because they destroy trees. Deer became expensive, for meat. Cue New Zealand ingenuity, not just trekking for days and shooting deer, but using helicopters to do it.
 Cue some more smart people as the price of venison went up:

  "Hang on, what if instead of killing all the deer, we caught a few and started farming them like we do with cows?"

 "Great idea! But how do we get them all the way back from the wild?"

"Well, what if we took the Helicopter as usual, but instead of shooting them, we er, well, jump on the deer and tackle it to the ground?"

"Worth a go..."

And that is what actually happened. Then slightly later, the net gun was invented, probably to lower the risk of comically missing the deer and breaking a limb. Now, despite scouring you tube, I couldn't find the video we were shown, or the footage of people jumping the deer, but this link does show some being netted

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaSxqxTmV1Q

I don't see this as cruel, it is being done to preserve the deer population! Unfortunately, they didn't offer jumping on a deer from a helicopter as one of the activities for some reason...

   After the video I had a lovely Possum pie. It did not taste like chicken. It was like lamb. You aren't allowed to buy or sell prepared possum though, so I gave the centre a small donation and they gave me a free pie. Good deal.

  They also had some goats outside, so here's a photo:

After this, we made our way to Franz Josef Glacier.

 So there's a few glaciers in New Zealand, and I chose not to take the helicopter up to the top, merely to walk as close as you can to the start (or end) of the Glacier I'll let the photos do the talking;

The valley carved out by the glacier and the streams coming from it

This is how clear the water is from those streams

I also did a horse trek while I was here, but it didn't seem like the smartest idea to take my camera along...

 So after Franz Josef, it was down to Wanaka, where I have been for a month now, and will be staying until the start of March. I've picked up a bar job at the Trout, nice little bar/restaurant/gastro pub, and despite having worked the busiest period of the year, I'm really enjoying being in hospitality again for a short while. It's a lot nicer than Wetherspoons! The team I'm working with are all  really great as well, and I've laughed so much in the last few weeks I'm in danger of cracking a rib.
  Why did I want to stay in Wanaka? I've only had the chance to get out with my camera once since being here, but here's a few shots for you:

Lake Wanaka

35 Degrees, and you can still see snow

The Grey stone building second from the right is where I work, so you just need to look out to see the view of the mountains and the lake

I want to take a night shot of this view, it's like someone has played around with the proportions of Aberystwyth

Poor Kids

    After Golden bay, Wanaka is probably my favourite place in New Zealand. I came here in May for a few hours so had a sneak peak already. Next time, I'll have lots more photos to show you hopefully!