Down to Christchurch

After separating from Aurora, it was time to head down south to Wellington and the South Island.  However, we were to make one stop along the way: Poor Knights Island.  Supposedly, the island, which was discovered and named by the famous Captain Cook, is supposed to be one of the greatest dive sites in the world.  In New Zealand you do often hear superlatives like "the most beautiful" or "the greatest" ______ "in the entire world!"  Many of the people who give these opinions are native New Zealanders who have never left the country.  Not that their opinions are necessarily wrong, but Team Homer is a group comprised of people who have seen things like Machu Picchu, Iguazu Falls, Patagonia, Norweigian Fjords, etc.  These sites we've visited are internationally recognized as being some of the world's true wonders.  Now, so my own opinions are not misconstrued, I'll say that while I disagree with the superlative nature of the opinions you'll hear about New Zealand from New Zealanders, the whole of the country has a unique beauty all it's own.  From the crystal-clear waters and rolling pastures of the north to the snow-capped peaks of the south, NZ can boast a diversity of beauty I've never seen before in my life.  Our tour of the country was filled with awe-inspiring views on a daily basis.

Anyway, back to the story.  So the EAC (East Austalian Current, which you may remember from Finding Nemo) carries all sorts of little nuggets of tropical sea-life to Poor Knights Island, which then are deposited on the corals of the island to grow and start a new life.  Despite having been on several dives before in my life, I lacked the necessary documentation for them to allow me to dive.  PADI, the international money-making machine that allows divers to carry around documentation 'proving' they can dive, was not an organization that I was affiliated with (I remedied this problem in Thailand, but I'll get to that later), so no diving for me.  Still, the dive site was supposed to be so spectacular that even a snorkeler would have an amazing time.

So we got to the dive shop the day of the adventure, and I inquired as to the visibility under water.  Since it was raining and the sea looked particularly choppy, visibility would absolutely be reduced from it's normal levels.  The response in the shop was "this is Poor Knight's Island.  The rain won't affect anything.  It'll be spectacular."  That all turned out to be a giant load of BS.  Anyway, since it was a cold water dive, we were outfitted with massive neoprene suits.

Super-duper neoprene suits

These suits also gave us incredible bouyancy, so we couldn't even do any free-diving down a few more meters to see some of the 'incredible' sea life.  Saw a couple cool corals/sponges, but we really couldn't see much else and mostly entertained ourselves by throwing dead jelly-like creatures at each other, which all floated to the surface in disgusting clumps.

So we left a bit disappointed and returned to the Homer.  A few hours later I realized I had forgotten my bathing suit on the dive boat.  Replacement board shorts in NZ cost 90-100NZD.  Not only am I on a traveler's budget, but 100 bucks for a men's bathing suit is ridiculous.  I used boxers from then on.
We drove down to Wellington, passing a few beautiful landscapes along the way, such as Lake Taupo.

Me at Lake Taupo

In Wellington, we purchased ferry tickets across the Cook Straight.  We only had something like 8 hours in Wellington, but figured we'd stop in for a few days on our way back.  I quite enjoyed Wellington while we were there.  We got some internet at a local internet cafe and all met up at the local Nomad's Hostel (the same Hostel chain we stayed in when we were in Auckland).  They were very kind and allowed us to crash in their common areas and use their kitchen while waiting for our ferry.

Colin and I wandered around and saw a deal for some steaks.  Deciding we wanted some meat, we stopped in and got ourselves some beer and a nice pepper steak, enjoying ourselves enough to forget about the hit on our wallets.  Satiated, happy, and lightly buzzed, we went back to Nomad's to discover that the Brians had prepared one gigantic meal for us.  Pasta, veggies, chicken, the works.  We couldn't bring ourselves to admit that we'd just eaten, considering the obvious effort they had put in to making a nice meal for us.  We ate two dinners.  I spent the next 5 hours uncomfortably digesting, but our second dinner was also delicious.

Our ferry was at 3am, so after parking the car in the cargo area, we grabbed our pillows and sleeping bags and walked upstairs to passenger quarters.  Once there, we instantly passed out.  We were awakened by a couple of deckhands turning on all the lights and yelling we were docking.  We rubbed our eyes, yawned, and groggily headed to our van.

Colin and I split the drive, as usual, down to Christchurch.  As it turned out Christchuch quickly became my absolute favorite city in New Zealand.  We knew we were going to spend a little extra time in ChCh because Thanksgiving was fast-approaching.  For our first few days there, we toured the city, taking in the sights, the culture, and searching for a suitable place to have a Thanksgiving celebration.

Christchurch was one of my favorite destinations for a few reasons.  Despite being the second-largest city in NZ, it has a small, comfortable feel to it, much like Ann Arbor.  The Kiwis living there also lived up to the reputation New Zealanders have of being some of the nicest people in the world.  For example, while stopped at a red light on a bus, the bus driver got out of his seat, walked back to us, and explained where we should get off to see certain sights.  Would that sort of kindness to strangers ever be seen on a bus in the States?  Yeah right.  The nicest thing you'll get out of a bus driver back home is probably a fart.

Here's come ChCh for ya:

The main church in the center of town...figured they call the place Christchurch for a reason

Brian Veber found us an awesome place to have Thanksgiving dinner--a little cottage-type house in a complex that looked like Camelot.

Camelot

So the day before Thanksgiving, Colin and I walked out to Wicked Company HQ (the company we were renting our van from) to try to see if we could get anyone else on the insurance so we wouldn't always be the ones doing the driving.  Either the place burnt down or was destroyed during the ChCh earthquake that had recently happened.  Either way, we knew we'd contnue to do the driving.

Earthquake damage

On the walk back, we decided to grab a beer and found a place called Street Side Cafe, which was connected to the Holiday Inn.  It looked a bit swanky, almost like a martini bar.  But still, we wandered in to see if they had a happy hour or some beer deals.  As it turned out, they had the best deal in town.  Side Street was about to become a hot spot for us.  Colin and I had a few beers while sitting and watching India beat up on New Zealand in a cricket match, all the while Colin teaching me the ins and outs of the sport.  He also taught me about the Ashes Test match which was about to begin.  The Ashes is a series between England and Australia, best of 5 test matches.  One test match is 5 days long.  So yes, that's 25 days of cricket.  I couldn't understand how something could hold anyone's attention for that amount of time, until Colin explained that I had to think of it more like a war than a battle.  After watching two test matches in New Zealand, I actually grew to understand and even enjoy watching cricket.

On Thanksgiving day, we moved into our little cottage and began cooking.  One of Colin's friends, named Meredith, from Kerikeri expressed interest in meeting up with us and taking Aurora's spot in the Homer, so I drove out to the airport with Colin to pick her up.  In addition, two of Blove's friends from back home, named Matt and Lindsey also happened to be in Christchurch, so they joined us for dinner as well.  In a surprising development, it also turned out that Aurora was in Christchurch as well, so we had quite a group for the evening's festivities.

The Ashes first test match began in Brisbane, Australia and took over Colin and Meredith's interest for the entire day.  As Colin explained, this was England's best cricket team in over 15 years, which was fortunate because Australia had one of the weakest teams they had fielded in recent memory.  Australia had beaten up on England for the better part of the last 20 years, so he was excited to see England take back the Ashes trophy.  That first day, England completely choked and got bowled out for a dangerously low amount of runs.  One of the Australian bowlers even had a hat trick (3 bowls(pitches), 3 outs), which had only happened like 3 times in the last century.  We all got into the series and watched England fight back over the next 4 days to eventually draw.

Back to Thanksgiving: so we all took turns preparing some part of the meal (I was on asparagus detail), and went outside from time to time to throw around a football.  It was somewhat unfortunate that we didn't get to watch any NFL games, without which it really doesn't feel like thanksgiving.

After over-eating like any good American, Blove had a tradition he needed to take care of.  Apparently every year he eats an entire jello mold with his hands behind his back, and his family bets on how long it will take him to finish.  So we made a jello mold and had him attempt.  It was one of the funnier T-day traditions I've ever witnessed.

We stayed in ChCh for another day or two, exploring a bit more.  I bought myself an AllBlacks jersey (NZ rugby team), and Blove bought himself some rugby shorts.  Upon a recommendation, we heard some of the beaches 40 or so minutes outside the city were ssupposedly spectacular.  So the Brians and I drove out to check them out (I can't remember why Colin and Meredith didn't join, I can only assume it was cricket-related).  They were absolutely gorgeous, and we spent a while throwing a football around while other beach-goers stared at us as if we were playing some alien sport.

A cool photo of the beach area

After a good night's sleep at our camp ground, we headed off for Dunedin.

I promise I'll try to do better updating this blog.  Gotta get caught up....I apologize to everyone reading!!