I liked Queenstown, a lot. It has an alpine town feel, but it only comes half way up the alpine town price scale. Sort of yester-year's Val d'Isere but with today's crowd. The kids (and others) all had their cash to spend as QT is the heart of finding your NZ (if bungy jumping, jet boating, sky diving zorbing or any other kind of -ing is involved). Anyth-ing seemed to go. I had a hatful of ideas on starting up business(es) but now isn't the time. (Jeez, I sound like my own bogus entry on Friends Reunited. In fact when exactly would be the time? You're talking sh*te Pants! Yeah I know.) Anyway, I left Queenstown heading for Christchurch after doing some Xmas shopping and temporarily losing my credit card...funnily enough I left it behind a bar the previous night (see previous post).
Mount Cook across Lake Pukaki. Spectacular day...to be on a bus. Hmmm. And the water really is that milky blue colour. It's to do with rock particles from the glaciers in suspension in the lake water...hello...who invited the geography teacher back? Haven't you got marking to do?
More of the same. Lake...mountain...la la la. NEXT!
Other than the churches and to get a glimpse of Christ (he must have been in civvies as I didn't spot him) the main reason to visit Christchurch was to meet up with Susie Marsh, a friend of Iwan's who I'd been threatening to sponge off all the way round NZ. We met for coffee and on her suggestion of a bike ride, I thought 'Why not?' Having scoped out the Christchurch terrain it seemed pretty flat so a potter on a bike might be a laugh. HA! indeed! The laugh was on me. She lives in the Christchurch port of Lyttelton, an altogether different spot and an altogether hillier spot. We were in full Lycra before I could say 'Does my bum/tum/ear lobe look big in this?' and off up the summit road (I think the name says it all). She crushed my spuds cycling in eye-watering scenery and wind for a couple of hours. Great fun though and the bottle of Corona (beer as opposed to the lemonade of our youth) at the end of the ride somehow tasted that much more Divine. Apt for Christchurch.
We had dinner out in Lyttelton with some of Susie's friends (one of whom was an English guy called Ants...a different Ants...what a coincidence). Great evening of banter and despite nearly all the people round the table being doctors, I managed to hang in there with the conversation (I think...I've forgotten what 'normal' conversation is). Really nice to share an evening off the traveller's route with people my age that shared a similar sense of humour (I think).
I had a room of my own at Susie's spectacular (and it is Susie!) house over looking Lyttelton Harbour. So so so nice to get a lie in: no 6:45am dorm room bag rustlers, no cocophany of alarms, no 10am check out. Susie had gone to work when I surfaced from my Zzzz and after a coffee I took a hike up into the hills (the ones that I had been tortured by the previous day on the bike). Thence back to Christchurch and onwards with my travels.
A taste of home in Christchurch. They say it's the most English of NZ cities. Maybe so. It doesn't look a huge amount like Blighty but there's a river in town you can punt on (I do that every weekend back home...right?) and they've done a fair job of Anglicising the place up with the street names. Aaah, bonnie Southwark.
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