White on the top

The past few days have been "stinking hot" with very high humidity so when I came across the pictures from my holiday in New Zealand I felt so much cooler! My visit was in Autumn and the cold had not yet descended to road level - a perfect time for travel in that country. The trees are in their colourful glory and you can explore without having to be weighted down by heavy clothing.
It was the following two photographs that brought my temperature down.

As we drove along we could see that the snow was just starting to settle on the top of the alps. This is in the Mount Cook range of mountain tops but I am afraid that I have no idea of the names of the peaks

I have a feeling that the peak shown in this second picture is that of Mount Cook. To see the pictures more clearly click on one and it will open in a new page.
The South Island of New Zealand is a photographer's paradise, it is filled with lakes, rives, mountains and glorious scenery, the coastline is stunning and there is so much variety in landscape in such a small (half of a) country.
I definitely feel a lot cooler!
AJ

Driving back to Christchurch

Our final day in New Zealand was to be spent on the road. The drive from Wanaka to Christchurch takes roughly six and half hours.
In spite of Colin's interest in the daily weather forecasts I had made my own predictions. We were to have sunshine for every day of our holiday but it was allowed to rain on the last day because there would be less distraction to hold us up! Someone "up there" was listening and we had our holiday in sunshine and our trip back to Christchurch in the rain!
I just had to take a last parting shot of the Central Otago hills as they looked in the drab weather just to show how lucky we were to see them with the sun on them. It would be difficult to get excited about the scenery when it looks this grey - the sunlight accentuating all the shadows made these same hills look fascinating and "photographable".
In a pretty area called the "Waitaki Valley" where there were lush green fields in flat land in a valley between low hills I spotted what looked to be a mud brick house set back from the road. In spite of the light rain I just had to investigate! The gate into the field in which this fenced house stood was locked closed with a hefty chain so my shots had to be taken from the road, I zoomed in with the Samsung (I wanted to be as quick as possible and not get wet so didn't have time to fiddle with the settings on the SLR!) and took a shot of the sign, I couldn't read it from the road so I was hoping that I had held the camera still enough to enable me to enlarge the picture and so read the sign.
Since the content is interesting I have replaced the text using Photoshop so that you can read it too. (If not click on the picture and it will take you to a larger version.)
Once we had passed through the Waitaki Valley the hills disappeared and the landscape became so flat that it was featureless and in the rain totally boring! When we reached a "Driver Reviver" cafe I received a free cup of coffee (being the driver) while Colin had to pay for his! It was a welcome break - and there was a pot-belly stove in the dining area so I sat with my back to it and warmed up inside and out! Its amazing how chilled the damp and greyness can make you feel. The waitress commented on the boring road too so it wasn't just me that felt it!
Colin took over the driving for the last hour so I was able to take a dreadful picture of the scenery from inside the car. The foreground is whizzing past so has motion blur and there is so little of the land to be seen because of the flatness and the sky - well the sky is wet! What you can make out is that there are long hedges that line the paddocks - they are presumably wind breaks as they are about 15 meters tall or more and consist of pine trees mostly but other trees are used too. We were amused that the huge sprinklers that irrigate the pastures were all operating.
Our NZ trip is over. I could not post this report on our last day until today for lack of internet connection. I trust you have enjoyed sharing our experiences and feel inspired to visit New Zealand yourself.
AJ

Further up the Rail Trail

This is our last day for exploring the country around Wanaka so with picnic basket packed we set off to explore further along the Central Otago Rail Trail and kept the car rolling until we had driven past the places at which we had stopped yesterday. It meant a long stretch of driving – over two hours non stop – but once we started to explore new country that distance was forgotten and the cameras were kept busy. 1/60 f/8 ISO 200

Our first stop of interest was a watering hole that has become busy thanks to the development of the cycle track along the old railway tracks.

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Wedderburn has a namesake in Australia but other than the name there is no similarity at all. This Wedderburn totals one old hotel and one back packer farm-stay. The hotel is built from what looks to be local stone, but I suspect that it has been restored and refurbished a few times since its original construction. The summer outside garden area is enclosed with the same stonework and the way it has been done gives character to a functional area. What amused us was the line-up of vehicles for hire near by. We wondered where the people would come from to hire these vehicles! Surely the cyclists wouldn’t want them!
At a T Junction I made a decision to turn left to see what Naseby looked like. It was only 15k up the road so not far. What a gem this place turned out to be! It is not on a through road, the road goes no further, and yet the town is quite sizeable and full of the most interesting buildings dating back to the late 1800’s. We locked the car and walked around taking plenty of photos of a town that seems to have been stuck in time. The shops that were open seemed to be selling junk from that era too!
The only picture of the buildings I am sharing with you is of a haberdashery on the corner.

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The little dark painted shop next door to it is a clock and optical shop! What a combination. Get your clock fixed while you try on some new spectacles! The items in the window were fascination and both Colin and I managed to take a couple of shots of them. It’s no good. I shall have to show you one of the pictures I took! Like I said, it is as though the place has been stuck in time, this display looks so natural! 1/60 f/3.9 ISO 100 (p & s Samsung N50)

As it was time for lunch I pulled the car up beside a grassy area with some dark and healthy fir trees. On taking a second look at the trees I was amazed to find that these trees had been planted in 1880 after being brought from different parts of the world, there was a tree from Afganistan, one from Canada, and the two huge Wellingtonia (Sesquoiadendron giganteum) were from California, USA. (there were labels on the trees!) You can tell from the size of our tiny red Toyota Corolla just how big these trees are!

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Another unexpected find was a german gun - sorry I am not interested enough in weapons to know what sort of gun it is! The NZ soldiers from Naseby who won the particular battle and comandeered this gun had it shipped to England and then it was send on to NZ where it eventually wound up at Naseby. When you drive the country roads for miles and miles and see nothing but hills and sheep it is a real surprise to learn that the soldiers from this little town were presented with this trophy! And look how new and well preserved it looks! It doesn't look as if it is nearly 100 years old.1/180 f/6.3 ISO 80 (p & s Samsung N50)

Our next town visited was Ranfurly and it is different as it could possibly be from Naseby. This town is quite large too but its buildings are mostly 1950s and are of the Art Deco style. We walked into one of them and found ourselves confronted by a delightful volunteer who really enjoyed explaining about the towns we had visited. She had some stories of her own travels to share too so it was difficult to tear ourselves away!
This evening we pack our cases in readiness for the long trek back to Christchurch. Just as we had promised ourselves, we shall be taking back to Australia a large chunk of New Zealand in our memory cards!
AJ

Gold rush - for the gold towns

Today was a day of exploring old gold mining towns and we found so much of interest that I am going to limit what I write about today. I could write a book of the places we saw!
From Cromwell we headed first in the direction of Alexandra and were almost there when a signboard indicated a lookout over a dammed river. Several photos later we took an alternative road rather than return to the one we had just left and took a look at a small town called Clyde.

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We did not expect to find such a character filled place – the buildings were equally as old as those in famous Arrowtown and not on the tourist trail. I had a ball, taking photo after photo before we moved on to see if we could find other interesting places.
This was a day for detours. Whenever an alternative road appeared I took it! This was how we managed to find Ophir. What a little gem this place turned out to be. The Post Office is the oldest continuous working Post Office in all of New Zealand.

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I poked my head inside and met the Post Mistress. I asked her if she minded if I looked around and she gave me a guided tour. I called Colin up from where he was waiting in the car and he joined me while we were shown many of the original tools of the original opening of the Post Office, the scales, the heavy cash box, and the counter calendar were just some of the treasures.

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While we were taking pictures of the original safe and the posting sorting boxes an Ophir resident came in to collect her mail at the counter so our guide was back to business for a little while before she continued to show off the tools of the trade that were still in use. We were then directed up behind the Post Office to the old Police lock-up. To be incarcerated in such a cold dark lockup would turn anyone off crime!
This town must have been quite prosperous because it has the most incredible suspension bridge across the deep sided river.

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I would love to tell you about Cambrians and St Bathans which are two other tiny gold mining towns tucked back off the main roads and not even on the main map - but space does not allow. It was only because we stopped for lunch at one of the Rail Trail stops that we were able so see a local map that showed where many tiny gold mining villages could be found. The area we covered has miles of what was once rail lines that are now cycles tracks and is called the “Otago Central Rail Trail”. The rail trail stretches from Alexandra to Middlemarch but we only covered a quarter of the distance.
Colin and I walked around the area that was once the gold diggings at St Bathans but we didn’t have our gold pans with us so we came away empty handed!
The white walled cliffs once contained veins of alluvial gold which was extracted with water jets. As the slurry washed down the cliffs the miners collected it and panned the gold from the mud. It would have been hard and dirty work – but rather than be muddy brown by the end of a day’s work they would have looked like ghosts!

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The countryside in this area we covered today is different again to that of the Haast Pass and the tree-less mountains of Central Otago between Omarama and Queenstown. So as well as many pictures of the towns we visited we have also filled our cameras with even more views! This is a fascination country with something different to see at every turn in the road.
AJ

Haast for lunch

Every Timeshare Resort organizes a social hour for the guests for the week. Today was the day for Edgewater – however it was between the hours of 10.30 and 11.30 which would mean that there would be no time to go anywhere if we attended. So we packed up our picnic case and topped up the car with unleaded fuel and off we went in the direction of the West Coast leaving our lodgings at nine. By the time the social was to start we were miles away in the mountains!
The few wispy clouds that hung around first thing, evaporated as we drove higher and once again we were able to strip off our warm jackets and enjoy the warmth of the sun. We passed two lakes – actually we passed one of the lakes twice! Once we had rounded one of the mountains we came back onto Lake Wanaka, the other lake, which is equally as large, is Lake Hawea. A snowy peak could be seen in the distance over lake Hawea and I am afraid that I couldn’t resist this shot with the sheep in the foreground – trouble is, I was aiming straight into the sun with nothing to give me shade so I have a bit of lens flare. Sorry about that!

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Our drive was to take us over the Haast Pass. Many years ago this was only passable on foot but now it is a comfortable road albeit a bit twisty. No time to nod off on this road!
As soon as we came to the halfway point between Wanaka and Haast the countryside changed dramatically. The hills around Wanaka are treeless while from Makarora, some sixty km from Wanaka, the trees suddenly cover the mountains from valley to peak.

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Along this stretch there are many waterfalls, some are within easy reach of the road but others require up to an hour to get to and back from. We stopped for a couple and chickened out on another once we read the notice board and found out how long we needed! The wonderful rainforest once you leave the road was too tempting to not take a photo to share with you. The tree ferns are numerous and all the trees were covered with moss and lichen and the whole area looked very “Tolkien”.

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Once over the pass we drove along the flat country of Haast, This just reinforced the awareness of the changeability of the scenery. We drove in an around the township of Haast – that took less than five minutes! It’s a tiny place. Then we stopped in the car park of the Visitor Information Centre and spent a while looking over all their displays – they have been hung on the walls with the sunlight blazing through the many windows for so long that many of the large photographs have turned into a monochromatic blue. Mind you, what was there was very interesting. We enjoyed our lunch seated at the one and only table in the middle of the car park! We had the entire car park to ourselves for the whole time we were there.

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Before leaving Haast we went in search of the Haast Beach. It was prominently signed but we nearly missed it – there is a service station and a motel and no beach to be seen. I back tracked and pulled into the gravel car park opposite the motel and we climbed out of the car and walked up a narrow track between very prickly gorse bushes until we came to the gravelly beach. We were surprised to see quite a lot of people on the beach walking along with their heads down looking for something. Colin took up the familiar pose of the fossicker and searched the beach to see what it was they were looking for. He found a few little pieces of what might be greenstone.
On the trip back to our unit we passed the Lakes again and took even more photographs. We managed to find a spot along Lake Hakea where the mountain on the otherside was reflected in the glass-like waters. Unfortunately there was no interesting foreground to lead the eye into the picture so I just have a funny reflection!

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We have two days left here in Wanaka and if the weather holds fine I shall end up with more than 12G of memory cards filled with photographs! Two of my three 4G cards are already filled. Once those are filled I will have to rely on my Samsung for photos. I still have some SD cards free.
AJ

Queenstown in the blazing sun

Amazing! Not a cloud in the sky today! Our plan was to go to Queenstown and take a ride up the gondola to view the city from on high. This is something I have done before but Colin has never been to Queenstown before and I knew that he would love it.
Queenstown is only just over an hour’s drive from where we are staying at Wanaka so this was going to be an easy day for me as the driver. Once again we drove over the road through the mountains. This road is often closed to traffic during the winter as it gets a fair amount of snow over it but at the moment it is a fun route with lots of wonderful mountains and valleys to wind our way around.

Lots of sheep in the South Island! I just had to take at least one picture with some in it!

Since our last trip over, when we visited Arrowtown, the few trees along the way have coloured even more. These mountains must be above the tree line for native trees because the only trees along the way are poplars and birch trees which are introduced trees. These have become a beautiful yellow and when the sun catches them they look fantastic!
When we arrived in Queenstown I found a place to park and we walked down to the edge of the lake where the steam ship Earnslaw was berthed and ready to receive a load of passengers.

Passengers boarding for their 90 minute cruise

Colin was not keen to go for a ride on the Earnslaw so instead we took lots of photographs of it and we were even able to take shots of it from the top of the Gondola ride – I did manage to get my reluctant spender to come with me on that!
From up here the Earnslaw is tiny - its the dot above the gondola!

Today I share more pictures than words! You are lucky there are not more though, today was a busy camera day and I filled yet another 4g card and started on my last card. What am I going to do when that one is filled? Ooops!!!!
Queenstown as seen from the viewing platform at the top of the gondola ride

Queenstown is a delightful little city and both of us enjoyed our day there. I am sure there are many more things to see and do there but by the time we finally agreed it was time to head back to Wanaka we had started to “flag”. We ended the day by watching some dare devils bungy jumping into the Shot-over River! They were getting soaked in the cold and fast flowing river below! I wasn’t inspired to try!
AJ

In search of snow

After filling the car with “juice” I drove north. Today we were going to try to get to Mt Cook. It is impossible to make a decision about such a trip the night before – Mt Cook has a habit of hiding behind clouds and if it was to be cloudy here it would definitely be cloudy in the heart of South Island. So with only wispy Cirrus clouds above our heads we crossed our collective fingers and set off in search of New Zealand’s most famous mountain.
As we drove along we were covering much of the same area that we had crossed on the way from Christchurch but since we were heading in the opposite direction and the sun was blazing overhead, everything looked quite different and we just had to stop to take a few photos along the way. Why not? This holiday is a photographic holiday!
When the snow melts in the mountains the raging rivers wash down thousands of boulders – it is almost snow time again so the rivers are very tame now. They are in waiting. I love the way the remaining water threads its way along many little rivers within the river bed. So when we crossed one of the rivers – the Ahuriri River – I pulled the car over and both Colin and I took pictures. Thanks to Colin taking a shot of the name of the river I have a record of it; otherwise I would have forgotten it.

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We turned off the road to Christchurch onto the Mount Cook road and it wasn’t far before we started to spot the distinctive peak – and it WAS covered with snow. We had been expecting to be cold and had loaded the car with fleecy tops and coats but so far we had not needed to put them on when we climbed out to take our pictures. Maybe when we get closer . . . .
Like everyone heading to see Mount Cook, we pulled over into “Peter’s Lookout” and took photos of the mountains from there. There were no clouds over the peak so we patted ourselves on the back!

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At the end of the road is a hotel, The Hermitage, a very smart looking place with high rise accommodation and a huge café on the level above a large tourist and ticketing office. The main feature of the building is the Sir Edmund Hilary Alpine Display It would have been good to go in to take a look but at $26 each we felt it was a bit expensive. The display is a collection of photos and three videos to watch. Sir Edmund Hilary did his mountain climbing training here before going on to be the first man to conquer Mt Everest back in 1952. He died in 2008. I took a shot of the statue of Hilary with the snow covered mountains behind him. This used to be easier before the statue was moved to its present location.

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Just to prove that we had actually been to Mount Cook we took photographs of each other with the mountain behind us. With Photoshop I could make this shot Colin took show a better coloured picture of me! So you will have to use your imagination! Picasa cannot do what I would like of it.

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Was it cold? It wasn’t! There was no wind and I guess that it was around 20 degrees C in the sun. It was cooler in the shade, of course, which is why I wore my fleece top. But I didn’t need my gloves and I didn’t need my coat.
This was a wonderful day I may not have quite as many photographs as on previous days but what I have taken make me happy!
AJ

From Christchurch to Wanaka

It was a big drive today. The car was packed and we were on our way by eight and the cloud cover made the driving easy to do – not good enough light to stop for photos!
Once we left the main road south and headed inland we soon found some fantastic scenery and Colin was busy taking lots of pictures through the windscreen. I am not sure if I shall use even half of them but he had a wonderful time trying to keep the images he saw to jog his memory later.
Poor Colin could not get over how dry the country looked. The only colour that was any different to parched gold was found in the trees planted around farms or the trees growing along the banks of rivers. However the magnitude of the mountains impressed him! We did stop when we reached the pretty little Church on the banks of Lake Tekapo and took a few pictures there. The first picture I am sharing with you is taken from a different place than usual – after all the little stone church is quite a simple shape and can be seen by Googling for it (Church of the Good Shepherd) so my shot shows just how tiny it is and how it is perched right on the edge of the lake.

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As we arrived, a young couple was posing for their wedding photos outside the church – it was freezing cold and the bride was wearing a strapless white dress! Very brave! Once they had rugged up in warm coats and disappeared I nipped into the church and took a picture of the very famous view past the altar. This is what makes this little church so special.

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We arrived at Wanaka at 3.30 and our first stop was at the supermarket to purchase food so that we had meals for the weekend! Very practical! We had done the distance on less than one tank of petrol which is excellent. We shall fill up tomorrow and I will know how much we used.
The resort in which we are staying is glorious! What a location! The view from our windows is wonderful. Some of the units have view of Lake Wanaka but I don’t mind our view at all – what do you think?

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I purchased a week of time on the internet and scratched the card to reveal the code – then logged on. Horror of horrors. The signal is so weak that I cannot even open the browser! It looks like I shall have to do as I did at Coffs Harbour and go down to the main office area to see if I can get a better connection there. Life isn’t all roses!
AJ

Mountain goats

We were woken in the night with the sound of heavy rain so it was such a relief to finally awake in the morning to find the sun shining and hardly a cloud in the sky.
There are just SO many things to do and see around Christchurch that it is difficult to decide on any one direction to go – I am fortunate in that when I make a decision, Colin is only too happy to go along with it.
So today we found a remote place in Christchurch – as high as we could get. I had considered taking a ride on the Gondola but noticed there was a road that actually drove right along the top of the hill so we shall save the Gondola trip for Queenstown. So we made the little hire car earn its petrol today. The road I drove was only one car wide and very twisty so I was not looking forward to meeting another car coming down – since the side of the road I was on had the narrowest of edges before the steep drop! I did meet other cars – but luckily it was not far from where there was a wider shoulder so our mirrors didn’t meet! There was once place where we had to wait for ten minutes while a team of council workmen with tip truck, wheel barrows and rakes were filling holes with bitumen and taking the full width of the track to operate. They were quite grateful that we were not as impatient as some drivers seem to be! Some Kiwi’s are quick to use their horns in their cars to express their impatience!

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When we reached a place where we could pull the car over safely and get out with our cameras the views of the city were magnificent. Colin has had fun today taking lots of groups of photos that need to be “stitched” to make panoramas. In fact he has taken as many photos as I have!

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Higher still we drove until we came to a ridge from which we could see Lyttelton Harbour on one side and the spread of Christchurch on the Canterbury Plains on the other. There is a stone “monument” that is like a shelter – but affords no shelter from the wind at all. It is in recognition of the pioneer women who struggled up the hillside carrying their worldly goods from the harbour below and paused to see the spread of the Canterbury Plains below them. I expect it was all green and lush when they first saw it – now you can barely see any farming land for all the homes on it.
This is the view we had of Lyttelton Harbour. This spot on the hill was bitterly cold and the wind was so strong it was difficult to stand upright.

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We really explored that hilltop and even found where the army had been stationed with their gun emplacements ready to defend the country from possible invasion by the Japanese in WW2. But an even better find was a little rest stop called “The Sign of the Kiwi” in which we purchased a delicious cup of coffee and a couple of shortbread biscuits topped with almonds. Yum! That warmed us up again! Our seat in the window was warmed by the sun so we were reluctant to leave.

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By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain it was time for lunch and even more exploring – another beautiful place. We went to New Brighton. It is a seaside place and needs more than a sentence to describe it! I will include pictures in my album eventually!
AJ

An ancient volcano

A sunny morning greeted me when I pulled back the curtains. The weathermen had got it wrong and today was going to be fantastic! Pulling on lightweight clothing instead of the winter gear we had mostly filled our cases with, we loaded the car with our camera equipment and took off in search of beautiful scenery.
The hired GPS was programmed with an address in Akaroa so that it would guide us through the cobweb of streets of Christchurch. Once out of the city the GPS was switched off. From here on we were just exploring.
What a treat, the scenery at every turn was so amazing that I wanted to stop and take photo after photo. Since I am the driver that is just what happened! I would share with you the 130 photos I took but I think that loading them into the blog would create a few problems. Instead I will put only three of them!

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An hotel high above the Akaroa Harbour had a carpark large enough for both cars and buses so everyone could share their view of the water and hills below. What a wonderful pattern is created by the hills and fingers of sea. This peninsular was all created many millions of years ago when a massive volcano erupted and erupted to build a massive pointed mountain. Erosion over the centuries along with the movement of the continent has left an amazing circle of low mountains with the sea in the low valleys. I shall have to see if I can find an aerial shot of the peninsular.
Our ultimate destination was the popular little town of Akaroa.

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Akaroa was once a whaling station settled by the French. Drawing on this history the streets have all been given French names and many of the houses display the French flag and gift shops specialize in French themed gifts.
Tourism has been an active and important part of the life of this town since Christchurch was a village so many of the quaint little buildings are quite old.

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Having enjoyed our day so much we were reluctant to return directly back to Christchurch so we crossed the peninsular to take a look at the port of Lyttelton before we ran out of energy altogether. That was worth it! The port is fascinating and the buildings of the main street are so like those of old parts of Great Britain that I felt quite English! Again – lots of photos!
A drive through the Lyttelton tunnel was an incredible end to a wonderful day trip.
AJ

Our first day in New Zealand

Our flight arrived 15 minutes early so we were through the customs and aboard the Airport Shuttle by 12.15 (after midnight) and the first thing we did when we dragged out a few things from our cases was to put the kettle on! There is nothing like a cup of tea to make you feel normal again!
A hugely expensive taxi ride took us to where we collected the hire car. We were able to hire a GPS at the same time (that costs as much as buying one!) because our own GPS would not find the satellite – I had purchased the NZ update for it before we left and it doesn’t work! Sigh! Ah well, if that is all that will go wrong I don’t mind!
Since picking up the car we have been everywhere! Cathedral Square was the first port of call and I had fun in and around the Cathedral.
My first picture is of Colin outside the Cathedral.

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I really don’t know why I have this luck but every time I visit an old building it is covered with scaffolding and every time I use the video camera there is someone using a mower or chainsaw!
I even took two shots inside the building - without the flash. I held the camera on the back of a seat and held my breathe and the results are quite surprising. I will share only one of them, the other shot is very similar. I did try to take on of the rose window but that turned out quite blurred from movement.

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Outside the Cathedral is a tall ice-cream cone of a sculpture, I remember it from the last time I was in Christchurch in 2004 and it still looks just as good! Sometimes city artworks become ugly with rust but not this!

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After a city tram ride that took us to lots of different and interesting places we disembarked to visit the Art Gallery. What an amazing building. The face of the building is walls of glass at many different angles. Rather than show the outside I have selected a shot I took inside the building – fantastic! Of course you are not allowed to take photographs of the artworks that are in the galleries but I was given permission to take as many shots as I wanted of the foyer – so I had a ball!

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We also spent lots of time in the Botanic Gardens. Our absolute favourite place in the gardens would have to be the begonia house! I have NEVER seen such huge flowers! They were stunning. Every colour under the rainbow and all flowers about 30cm across. I would love to be able to grow begonias like that – but they like the cool and hate the humidity so they are not the plant for the subtropics! 1/60 sec f/8 ISO 100

Today was a warm and very pleasant day – we even took out fleeces off and wandered around in short sleeves! Fingers crossed that tomorrow is a good day too! I somehow have my doubts. We can but hope.
AJ