New Zealand - Part 1

We booked our tickets to New Zealand long, long ago far before the Christmas ("winter") holidays. It wasn't high on Marcus's "to see" list since it's just a hop, skip and a jump away from Australia and it doesn't seem much like an overseas trip. The people are very similar, though they tend to centralize their vowels and say things like fush 'n chups, and Australia is so inundated with kiwis that you wouldn't know there are actually any back in their country. :) Kiwis live in the shadow of Australia, much like Canada and the US. Kiwis hate to be mistaken for Australians, though it happens frequently (I still do it) and it's almost unheard of for Australians to be called kiwis. That being said, they are a very friendly bunch and quite a few of my nicest workmates here in Australia are from NZ.

Our tickets were a steal at just over $250 per person, round trip. We couldn't not go. I missed my second big opening night of the year and another big work function...but I can't say I felt very bad about it. We had a great trip.

We left work on Friday a little early and met at Starbucks for a quick caffeine hit in the form of mocha frappuccinos and enjoyed a bit of sunny weather before heading to the airport. We dragged our four carry-on bags (we weren't paying for check-in!) through the city, onto the train, through the long airport foyer, and finally paused before checking in. We weren't sure if we'd make it under the 20kg per person weight limit, so we put on our sweatshirts and jackets, stuffed our pockets with iPods, cameras and anything else we thought might lighten the load, and headed to check-in. The first bag was 9 kg, the second 5 kg, the third was 6 kg and the last 3 kg. So far under! We sweated as we waited for the check-in process to end and immediately stripped the extra layers off upon leaving the desk. Whew! Steamy way to start the trip. We only had to waste an hour and a bit before our flight, so we had dinner, read, then got on with it. The flight wasn't too bad, 2.5 hours, though we arrived at midnight.

We flew in and out of Christchurch couldn't believe our bad timing. We had booked our accommodation for most of the trip the night before the earthquake struck. The hostel we'd booked in Christchurch was right in the center of city. Our hostel emailed us a few days later to inform us that they were inside the police cordon area, which was absolutely off-limits to all civilians (including the hostel owner) and told us we'd have to book other accommodation, giving a few recommendations. We followed her lead and booked in at another place. Then we looked at the map and realized they were right across the street from the cordon area. Yikes. We called this new hostel and were assured that their building hadn't been damaged and wasn't surrounded by any tall buildings. They had running water, though they apologized for not having much in the way of entertainment. As if we expected to be entertained after what they'd just gone through!

And they were right, the hostel was just fine. We had our own room and were happy to crawl right into bed.

The next day, we had a bit of a sleep in then got up and took a brief walk. This is what we saw.

It's funny because for good stretches there was no damage in sight. Houses were fine, cars were fine, no cracks in the road or anything, it all looked normal. Then you'd come across a building that was absolutely demolished, mostly older houses and quite a few older churches. It was pretty startling. What was even more startling (personally) were the six aftershocks we felt on our day in Christchurch. Sometimes they're so subtle you don't even realize it's an earthquake at first. You think maybe it's a big truck that's just driven by and made the house shake, or someone walking a bit too heavily upstairs. It was so strange that when I was falling asleep that night, I was a bit paranoid that another earthquake was coming. You know that moment when you're falling asleep and your entire body jerks? That happened a few times, but instead of letting it pass by peacefully it would make me reassess the situation and figure out if it was just me or if a shake was coming on. This was my paranoia over a day and a half. I can't imagine how the people from Christchurch must have felt. A few buslines were back up and running that day, but the routes were extremely limited and they were letting everyone ride free. We felt a bit guilty about that, we weren't the ones who deserved a free ride.

Anyway, that day passed by quietly, and we looked forward to heading out.

Day two we got our rental car and started the drive to Dunedin (pronounced duh-need-in, quite contrary to our snarled pronunciation of doon-uh-din). Our one stop of note was at the Elephant Rocks, which were filmed in a few army camp scenes in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. They were quite randomly placed rocks that have certainly seen their fair share of weathering throughout the centuries.

It has a proud Scottish heritage and we thought it was quite appropriate that bagpipes were playing in the park when we arrived in town. We got into town in time for dinner and an early night of drinking Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and watching How I Met Your Mother.

Happily, Dunedin is Cadbury's NZ headquarters, so we headed to the factory for a tour (and a good dose of chocolate!). Their factory was chocolate on a mass scale. The first room we walked into had the warm smell of fresh Turkish delight, a taste I'm slowly acquiring. Next we watched some assembly lines and packaging machines, and drank warm liquid chocolate (delicious, and so rich you can only eat/drink the small quantity they give you). There was a slightly annoying chubby boy (I'm mean) who couldn't stop getting his hands all over the chocolate. We called him Augustus for the rest of the tour.

Hairnets essential.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on a wildlife tour, where our first stop was at the only mainland albatross settlement in the world. The albatross didn't seem terribly astounding and looked like slightly larger seagulls. But it turns out they're much larger than seagulls with their wingspan stretching to three meters. Ba-jeezus. Giant birds. They spend most of their life out at sea and can spend ridiculous amounts of time out in the ocean before deciding to spend a little bit of time back home. This picture doesn't do the albatross justice, but here it is just for fun.

Then we did quite a bit of other birdwatching which was a bit boring except for the pukekos who are blue and black with red beaks and white butts. I'll give you a picture of them later. Then we went on to see seals, sea lions and yellow-eyed penguins.