Rocking and Rugby

The last week of New Zealand has been a bit weird. There’s some sadness about leaving, excitement for Australia, but also coming from the best bits of New Zealand to fairly average places this last week has been a bit of a bummer. But we have tried to make the most of it.

We’ve been in two places, Christchurch and Kaikoura. Christchurch being the so called capital of the South Island, and Kaikoura a place to see all sorts of sea life.

First, a night in Christchurch, having a bit of a wander and catching up with a pal I made back in Fiji who now lives here. Then it was an early start to get the bus to Kaikoura, which was quite frankly, a waste of time.

The weather in Kaikoura wasn’t great, and I had plans to go whale watching and possibly swimming with dolphins. Sadly, none of these trips were going to happen in the next couple of days, so I decided to call it the next day and get out of there back to Christchurch. I did manage to do a bit of a walk around the peninsula to see some seals, however the seals had other ideas and weren’t there. You may think from these photos that the weather looks beautiful, but what the photos don’t show is the wind. I don’t think I have experienced gusts like it!

Following the return to Christchurch, it was time for a spot of sightseeing. This really doesn’t take long as there’s not so many sights in Christchurch, but it is a nice city. There’s a lot of reminders of the 2011 earthquake, with memorials and construction on every corner. 

Much to my amusement, there are plenty of street names and districts in Christchurch with UK based names. You’ve got Manchester, Worcester and Gloucester Streets, and areas named Lincoln and Belfast. But my favourite was St Asaph Street. I was very surprised to find out that this street is named after the town in Wales I was born in (or at least the diocese).

The next day we went to a super rugby game at the Crusaders stadium in Christchurch against the Brumbies.

Games here tend to be a bit more wild than the ones at home, and I couldn’t stop laughing at the designated student section, complete with their very own DJ throughout the game. Three of them decided to invade the pitch, and they were pretty pathetic at doing it, getting dragged off just moments after their attempts.

There was also a prize if you managed to catch the ball in one go if it went outside the boundaries of the pitch. I was fortunate for the ball to come directly at me, and I did catch it, but then immediately dropped it, so no prize. That was rather humiliating.

They also let everyone go on the pitch after the game, which I thought was just insane.

Finally on the last day, word got round of a free rock music festival happening that afternoon, so we went along and it was rather good! A lovely way to round off Christchurch, and of course, New Zealand.

And that’s almost it. Tomorrow, it’s time to fly to the land down under.