In Christchurch. We were lucky enough to catch the Lantern festival. We took these photos during the day and returned in the evening. Quite a strange experience, there was no-one around during the day, then at night there were traffic jams galore and you couldn't move for people.
Dragon lantern.
What a nice picture - begonias in the Christchurch Botannical gardens. Makes you want to be a gardener?
Punting on the river Avon.
This is cool. Whilst drinking a tasty alcoholic ginger beer in a sunny pub, a friendly kiwi gave Garry a loan of his electric bike. It's quite unique, as the electric motor works on the front crank so you still have full use of all the gears. Garry only got it up to 35 kph, but it will do 80.
Valentine's Day. We wnt to the rugby to watch a Super 14s match between the Crusaders (from Christchurch) and the Chiefs. Garry was confused by the title (Super 14s) as there were 15 players on each side. Super 14s is a tournament for the top clubs from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Anyway, it was a very exciting game and a great experience for us.To continue our Valentine's Day celebrations, we went for a few beers and a curry. No surprise there then!
A new sport Alison would like to get into. Kite surfing with 180 degree turns in the air.
A shag having a good old stretch in the sunshine.
This was in Akarua, a former french outpost. Cool registration plate.
After Christchurch and Akarua, we visited Mount Cook. This is Alison holding a small lump of ice, that our boat driver fished out of the lake for us. This was on Lake Tasman at the foot of Mount Cook, at the bottom of the Tasman glacier. Just prior to our visit there was another "est". See below.
View of Mount Cook from the lake. What looks like a black mess on the shore line is the glacier, which is covered in rocks that the glacier has collected over thousands of years. As always with these pictures, there is no scale. The shore is 200 metres above the water line.
This is the "est". The biggest iceberg to break off from the glacier in known history. Again no scale. The lump of ice has tipped over, the black stripes were originally horizontal and the lump is about the size of Beverley Minster. As it is a fresh water iceberg, there is another 9/10ths of it below the surface.
Same iceberg from another angle.
Wow, another view of Mount Cook. Most of the time, the weather has been appalling, but we have been really lucky every time we have wanted to do something like a boat trip or kayaking, the weather has come good.
Mount Cook across the Lake Pukaki. You cannot see here on the picture, but the water is a turquoise green colour. There is a series of canals which were dug to supply the hydro electricity and due to the churned up rock sediment, the blue light waves from the sun are reflected by the water giving it a fabulous, almost alien green colour. It was just so sunny that the colours have been muted.
We went to Hanmer Springs and enjoyed the 36 and 42 degree spa pools and the smelly minerals. We think it is a place where mature people aka pensioners, have holiday homes. Look closely at the picture and you can see a guy riding a moped with his golf clubs on the back. Strange golf trolley.
Could be Alison, could be Garry, but it's actually another seal having a kip on the rocks.
Garry thought this was funny. Can anyone ride tandem? It was a race! We reckon the guy on the back is never going to win.
Once again, we have tried to upload the video - Ring of Fire. Hopefully it works this time.
A new sport Alison would like to get into. Kite surfing with 180 degree turns in the air.
A shag having a good old stretch in the sunshine.
This was in Akarua, a former french outpost. Cool registration plate.
After Christchurch and Akarua, we visited Mount Cook. This is Alison holding a small lump of ice, that our boat driver fished out of the lake for us. This was on Lake Tasman at the foot of Mount Cook, at the bottom of the Tasman glacier. Just prior to our visit there was another "est". See below.
View of Mount Cook from the lake. What looks like a black mess on the shore line is the glacier, which is covered in rocks that the glacier has collected over thousands of years. As always with these pictures, there is no scale. The shore is 200 metres above the water line.
This is the "est". The biggest iceberg to break off from the glacier in known history. Again no scale. The lump of ice has tipped over, the black stripes were originally horizontal and the lump is about the size of Beverley Minster. As it is a fresh water iceberg, there is another 9/10ths of it below the surface.
Same iceberg from another angle.
Wow, another view of Mount Cook. Most of the time, the weather has been appalling, but we have been really lucky every time we have wanted to do something like a boat trip or kayaking, the weather has come good. There is a visitors centre at Mount Cook with a museum to Sir Edward Hillary, we didn't know he was a kiwi. We knew he was the bestest mountaineerest Everest. Something else we learnt at the visitors centre is that the Southern hemisphere night sky is the same as the Northern hemisphere, but upside down. Figure that one out if you can! Answers on a postcard please.
Mount Cook across the Lake Pukaki. You cannot see here on the picture, but the water is a turquoise green colour. There is a series of canals which were dug to supply the hydro electricity and due to the churned up rock sediment, the blue light waves from the sun are reflected by the water giving it a fabulous, almost alien green colour. It was just so sunny that the colours have been muted.
We went to Hanmer Springs and enjoyed the 36 and 42 degree spa pools and the smelly minerals. We think it is a place where mature people aka pensioners, have holiday homes. Look closely at the picture and you can see a guy riding a moped with his golf clubs on the back. Strange golf trolley.
Could be Alison, could be Garry, but it's actually another seal having a kip on the rocks.
Garry thought this was funny. Can anyone ride tandem? It was a race! We reckon the guy on the back is never going to win.Once again, we have tried to upload the video - Ring of Fire. Hopefully it works this time.
On our final night in the South Island we had a bbq but it rained, bugger. However we did finally manage to get a picture of Ronan. If the Cork constabulary are looking for him they now know where he is! We've had another great time here. We managed to do a bit of pie making but more importantly have some time with our friends Aileen and Ronan. We're really going to miss New Zealand and very much miss our friends there.
Aileen's dad, Alastair, had a road accident just before Christmas, as you can see he is recovering very well. It was great to meet him, a really nice guy and he's back on his feet with a smile doing fine.
Aileen's dad, Alastair, had a road accident just before Christmas, as you can see he is recovering very well. It was great to meet him, a really nice guy and he's back on his feet with a smile doing fine.We'll try to do another update before we leave the North Island in a few days time.
Bye for now.
P.s.
Ronan, your "end piece" of cheese is hidden in the fridge. We didn't eat it, honest.
1 comment:
the riders on the tandum maybe blind as in the paralympics the blind cyclist had a sighted co rider
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