Sunday 9th March
This has all got messed up now due to the prioritisation of the Chilean segments. I will sort it out soon.
Today I departed Sydney for New Zealand. As its getting into winter, its South first and then move North, so off to Christchurch. It was an early start, after a late night, but Janet was kind enough to volunteer to drop me to the airport, although I could have got a taxi. There wasn't much to report from there, it was a fairly normal flight. The one interesting thing was we seemed to be delayed for the nice shiny A380. I guess nothing gets in the way of a successful launch of a new plane. The plane is massive, what makes it freaky is that unlike the 747 with its bump, it is the same proportion as other planes. So when it is up in the sky and far away, it just looks like another plane closer. Even after it took off it was visible for 10 minutes.
Eventually we took off and as I said it was a fairly standard flight. The one thing I guess us Europeans don't realise is how far NZ is from Oz. Its a 3 hour flight, like flying across Europe.
Upon arrival in Christchurch the first thing I had to do is locate accommodation. Due to some internet and credit card issues I had nothing booked. But it couldn't be easier. Just go into the tourist office and they pretty much did everything for me. It was a bit more expensive, but I went for an ultra modern hotel, sort of a pod concept, with a small room but everything you need, plasma TV, internet, and the best alarm system ever (more of that tomorrow).
Once booked in it was time for a walk around the town. It was weird, it was about 4 in the afternoon (yep like the flight time, I had also not realised the time difference) by the time I got out there, and the place was empty. I did the walk through the square with the eponymous church, along the river, through the botanic gardens, and in over an hour and a half on a Sunday afternoon I would say I saw 20 people tops. I have no idea where all the others were, but there were many more ducks that people. In fact it seemed like it was one of those Zombie movies where everyone had been turned into ducks. Zombie ducks.
The only real people I saw were some of the Cheetahs Super 14 rugby team, who were checking into the hotel after losing to the Chiefs the night before.
After that I found that some of the natives were in pubs, and went into a local micro brewery (amazingly bypassing the Irish bar - more about this later in the week) to have dinner, which was a very impressive venison wellington, before heading back to the hotel. Quite simply it seemed a bit dangerous to be walking the streets too late, there were a few dodgy characters lurking about.
This has all got messed up now due to the prioritisation of the Chilean segments. I will sort it out soon.
Today I departed Sydney for New Zealand. As its getting into winter, its South first and then move North, so off to Christchurch. It was an early start, after a late night, but Janet was kind enough to volunteer to drop me to the airport, although I could have got a taxi. There wasn't much to report from there, it was a fairly normal flight. The one interesting thing was we seemed to be delayed for the nice shiny A380. I guess nothing gets in the way of a successful launch of a new plane. The plane is massive, what makes it freaky is that unlike the 747 with its bump, it is the same proportion as other planes. So when it is up in the sky and far away, it just looks like another plane closer. Even after it took off it was visible for 10 minutes.
Eventually we took off and as I said it was a fairly standard flight. The one thing I guess us Europeans don't realise is how far NZ is from Oz. Its a 3 hour flight, like flying across Europe.
Upon arrival in Christchurch the first thing I had to do is locate accommodation. Due to some internet and credit card issues I had nothing booked. But it couldn't be easier. Just go into the tourist office and they pretty much did everything for me. It was a bit more expensive, but I went for an ultra modern hotel, sort of a pod concept, with a small room but everything you need, plasma TV, internet, and the best alarm system ever (more of that tomorrow).
Once booked in it was time for a walk around the town. It was weird, it was about 4 in the afternoon (yep like the flight time, I had also not realised the time difference) by the time I got out there, and the place was empty. I did the walk through the square with the eponymous church, along the river, through the botanic gardens, and in over an hour and a half on a Sunday afternoon I would say I saw 20 people tops. I have no idea where all the others were, but there were many more ducks that people. In fact it seemed like it was one of those Zombie movies where everyone had been turned into ducks. Zombie ducks.
The only real people I saw were some of the Cheetahs Super 14 rugby team, who were checking into the hotel after losing to the Chiefs the night before.
After that I found that some of the natives were in pubs, and went into a local micro brewery (amazingly bypassing the Irish bar - more about this later in the week) to have dinner, which was a very impressive venison wellington, before heading back to the hotel. Quite simply it seemed a bit dangerous to be walking the streets too late, there were a few dodgy characters lurking about.
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