Since 10th November 2011 we are touring around New Zealand (NZ). Well, I hope
we have just started.
Our first city was Christchurch (CHCH) as this is a destination that Air Asia
uses for its flights to NZ. We have stayed for four nights in Haka Lodge, very
nice hostel, about 3.5km far from the city centre; and as we wanted to save
money we had to walk there and back every day (first day we walked almost
20km!). CHCH used to look like an English city, but after the February
earthquake, 45% of the city centre will be demolished, mainly old brick
buildings. That is why it felt as it is a sad, empty city.
However, you can see
that locals works towards rebuilding and revitalising their city – there is a
great funky square on the former main city centre road where shops are build
from large containers that are painted with different colours. There wasn’t much
more to see so we have just wandered around organising our new life in NZ (bank
ac, IRD number, new sim cards, campervan, food and other stuff for camping
etc.). Even though there is work within CHCH, we did not want to stay as it is
not as nice city to live at during our holidays.
That is why once we have bought our new Nissan Serena, we have left CHCH and
headed north towards Kaikura. It is famous for its whale watching but with
prices fro $140 per person we have to wait until our pockets will be more full
again :-). But we could not miss Kaikura Peninsula Walk with seals colonies and
beautiful cliffs. There the land looked like a combination of Austria, CZ
and Mediterranean within 20km. And with it came my hayfever :-(. Fortunately
it wasn’t that bad and I could enjoy the beauty of snowed mountains over a
seaside that is Kaikura also famous for.
As there was no free Wi-Fi (that we have learnt to love) we have decided to
move north towards Blenheim. This is normal city, nothing extraordinary, lot of
wineries around, no free internet, so we headed to Nelson. We have been around
Nelson for almost a week now, but about it a bit later.
No comments:
Post a Comment