Friday, April 9, 2010
On to the West Coast Continued and Fox Glacier
Here's a few videos starting on the train to the West Coast of the South Island (Greymouth), then driving down to Fox Glacier and our time there.
Christchurch Continued and On to the West Coast
Here's some videos of the Giant Christmas Tree and Christchurch Cathedral:
I did have videos of our boat ride with hundreds of thousands of jellyfish and dolphins jumping all around and beautiful views, but unfortunately I can't upload it.One thing that was pretty funny was how many famous-people-imposters there were. Among others, I saw Matt Damon, Paton Manning, Elijah Wood, Tom Sawyer, and a Wizard.
After finishing with Cathedral Square, we drove over to meet one of my dad's good friends (Mr. Pickering) from a long time ago. They had two kids my age, and it was nice to have somebody to talk to after nearly a month. We had dinner at their house and stayed for a while. For dinner we got our first taste of New Zealand Pizza and experienced the height (so far) of New Zealand's outrageous prices. An example was the chicken and apricot pizza (it had a very interesting taste) - Pizza Hutt charged us something like 15$ for a "large" (the "large" was like 10" diameter). After dinner I got to try out Michael (the younger one)'s guitar - an Epiphone SG, and that was pretty cool. We stayed pretty late until we had to go back to the motel.
The next day Mr. Pickering came over and gave us a scenic tour of Christchurch, which was pretty cool. One thing that took me by surprise was a Maserati dealership that was bigger than the one in Newport Beach. After lunch, my dad took Haylie, Keiren and I to a place called Adrenaline Forest. That was awesome! It's basically an enormous sort of obstacle course involving tight-ropes, flying foxes (ziplines), rope swings and dozens of other different kinds of rope course obstacles you have to do, suspended high in the air. I don't really know how to explain it better. There are six courses, each one harder and higher up than the last. The first one was easy and just a practice one. You have two carabeeners that you have to have hooked on to the safety line at all times (they're pretty strict about that) while you climb through the forest on all sorts of different obstacles. The first 2 courses were easy, but by the time we got to
number 5, I was barely making it from one tree to the next, they were pretty intense. Also, the end of the 5th one was about 100 feet high, which made a 60 foot uphill tightrope walk fairly scary. Unfortunately, we didn't really get any good videos or pictures. We do have a few videos though - I'll try to get them up later. We just finished the 5th course by the time the place closed, so I never got to do number 6. Next time we come down, we're definitely going to do that again.
After we finished with Adrenaline Forest, we rested for a bit at the motel before the Pickerings picked us up to go to a nice Thai Restaurant (it was Mrs. Pickering's birthday). It was a very nice dinner, and afterwards we had our traditional group photo and said goodbye.
We got up really early the next morning to get on the next big train ride across the South Island to the West Coast. The train goes through the Southern Alps and Arthur's Pass, which I've heard are incredible sights. We didn't find out until after an hour of waiting for the train to go that we wouldn't be riding that day. We were told that there was a train accident on the track just out of town - they said there was a problem because "the train didn't stop for a car". We found out later that it was actually a pedestrian - some lady was walking her dog on the train tracks. The engineer blasted his horn three times and there was nothing he could do when the lady just wouldn't get out of the way. Well, that made a big problem for us because the train people were just going cart us off on buses. There was no way we were doing that - four hours on a big bus on a winding mountain road. So we decided to stay in Christchurch for an extra day and shorten our time in Fox Glacier. We went to the Christchurch museum, which was pretty cool, and went kayaking again.
We relaxed the rest of the day and prepared to redo that morning's adventures the next day.
But luckily for us, the train left on schedule. And boy what a train ride. It was incredible! The whole time there was beautiful views. We crossed an enormous bright blue river several times that looked just like the Anduin and witnessed the Southern Alps, named with good reason. Also there were dozens of scenes that looked just like Rohan.
There are dozens and dozens of pictures from the train ride, so these are in no particular order.
This one is a picture of the strangest trees I've ever seen - like something from Dr. Seuss...
This post has too many pictures, so I'll continue later with another post. If I had been smart, I would have made a slide show... oh well...
I did have videos of our boat ride with hundreds of thousands of jellyfish and dolphins jumping all around and beautiful views, but unfortunately I can't upload it.One thing that was pretty funny was how many famous-people-imposters there were. Among others, I saw Matt Damon, Paton Manning, Elijah Wood, Tom Sawyer, and a Wizard.
After finishing with Cathedral Square, we drove over to meet one of my dad's good friends (Mr. Pickering) from a long time ago. They had two kids my age, and it was nice to have somebody to talk to after nearly a month. We had dinner at their house and stayed for a while. For dinner we got our first taste of New Zealand Pizza and experienced the height (so far) of New Zealand's outrageous prices. An example was the chicken and apricot pizza (it had a very interesting taste) - Pizza Hutt charged us something like 15$ for a "large" (the "large" was like 10" diameter). After dinner I got to try out Michael (the younger one)'s guitar - an Epiphone SG, and that was pretty cool. We stayed pretty late until we had to go back to the motel.
The next day Mr. Pickering came over and gave us a scenic tour of Christchurch, which was pretty cool. One thing that took me by surprise was a Maserati dealership that was bigger than the one in Newport Beach. After lunch, my dad took Haylie, Keiren and I to a place called Adrenaline Forest. That was awesome! It's basically an enormous sort of obstacle course involving tight-ropes, flying foxes (ziplines), rope swings and dozens of other different kinds of rope course obstacles you have to do, suspended high in the air. I don't really know how to explain it better. There are six courses, each one harder and higher up than the last. The first one was easy and just a practice one. You have two carabeeners that you have to have hooked on to the safety line at all times (they're pretty strict about that) while you climb through the forest on all sorts of different obstacles. The first 2 courses were easy, but by the time we got to
number 5, I was barely making it from one tree to the next, they were pretty intense. Also, the end of the 5th one was about 100 feet high, which made a 60 foot uphill tightrope walk fairly scary. Unfortunately, we didn't really get any good videos or pictures. We do have a few videos though - I'll try to get them up later. We just finished the 5th course by the time the place closed, so I never got to do number 6. Next time we come down, we're definitely going to do that again.
After we finished with Adrenaline Forest, we rested for a bit at the motel before the Pickerings picked us up to go to a nice Thai Restaurant (it was Mrs. Pickering's birthday). It was a very nice dinner, and afterwards we had our traditional group photo and said goodbye.
We got up really early the next morning to get on the next big train ride across the South Island to the West Coast. The train goes through the Southern Alps and Arthur's Pass, which I've heard are incredible sights. We didn't find out until after an hour of waiting for the train to go that we wouldn't be riding that day. We were told that there was a train accident on the track just out of town - they said there was a problem because "the train didn't stop for a car". We found out later that it was actually a pedestrian - some lady was walking her dog on the train tracks. The engineer blasted his horn three times and there was nothing he could do when the lady just wouldn't get out of the way. Well, that made a big problem for us because the train people were just going cart us off on buses. There was no way we were doing that - four hours on a big bus on a winding mountain road. So we decided to stay in Christchurch for an extra day and shorten our time in Fox Glacier. We went to the Christchurch museum, which was pretty cool, and went kayaking again.
We relaxed the rest of the day and prepared to redo that morning's adventures the next day.
But luckily for us, the train left on schedule. And boy what a train ride. It was incredible! The whole time there was beautiful views. We crossed an enormous bright blue river several times that looked just like the Anduin and witnessed the Southern Alps, named with good reason. Also there were dozens of scenes that looked just like Rohan.
There are dozens and dozens of pictures from the train ride, so these are in no particular order.
This one is a picture of the strangest trees I've ever seen - like something from Dr. Seuss...
This post has too many pictures, so I'll continue later with another post. If I had been smart, I would have made a slide show... oh well...
Friday, April 2, 2010
Christchurch
Our first day in the South Island was a long day of traveling. We got up really early to go to the ferry station, but when we got there, it looked like we had a cruise ship for a ferry - it was huge! My mom had given me that scopolamine patch, and I knew after just one hour on the open ocean that if it weren't for that patch, the fish would have had a nice meal of blended eggs and sausage. Unfortunately that meant that I was tired and a bit whoopdeedoosy (if you know what I mean), so I didn't get to enjoy the boat ride itself until halfway through when I got myself a mountain dew on one of the ship's several restaurant/cafes. My dad and I decided to go up to the very top of the boat. The wind was so strong up there that I could stand backwards at a 60 degree angle and be completely supported - that was really fun.
Those pics are while we were going through the Marlborough Sounds - a labyrinth of islands and straits and stuff like that.
We got off the ferry at Picton on the South Island and had lunch there while waiting for the train. For a six hour train ride I was expecting a big smooth riding Amtrak or something like that, but what we got was a small wobbly old train that felt like it was gonna rock right of the tracks at high speeds. You kinda got used to it though, the ride was nice, and the scenery was awesome. They had these really cool open air cars, too, that were just that - completely open and hardly anything to stop you from just jumping (or falling) off. We rode right along the beach for a while and got to see a bunch of black-sand and even penguin beaches.
It doesn't sound like much but that wore me out, and when we got to our hotel in Christchurch, I was exhausted.
The next day we wandered around Christchurch and Cathedral Square, and that was pretty cool. First we walked along the Avon River and found a cheap kayaking place, so we did that for a little while.
Next we walked through the Botanical Gardens of Hagley Park. There were tons of ancient trees, including a christmas tree the size of a several story building that you could walk around inside, and an even bigger sequoia.
Near Cathedral Square was Ernest Rutherford's museum - actually in and around his actual laboratory and the lecture hall he actually taught in - that was pretty cool.
Cathedral Square was very cool. It is the tourist and historical center of Christchurch. All the buildings are early 19th century made from hewn stone in Old English style. There are performances, shops, markets, giant-life-sized chess games, wizard blatherers (a guy dressed in a complete wizard suit stands in the square and shouts nonsense to anybody who'll listen) and an enormous 150 year old Christchurch Cathedral, the icon of the city, all in the Square.
That is the Christchurch Cathedral. We decided to climb up to the top of the bell tower (the tall thing on the left). That was slightly creepy - the stair was the narrowest, tightest, steepest spiraling staircase that went up pretty high. I wouldn't have known what to do if somebody had come back down while we were going up, because there was not enough room for anybody to pass by.
I'll continue this post later, so check again later!
Those pics are while we were going through the Marlborough Sounds - a labyrinth of islands and straits and stuff like that.We got off the ferry at Picton on the South Island and had lunch there while waiting for the train. For a six hour train ride I was expecting a big smooth riding Amtrak or something like that, but what we got was a small wobbly old train that felt like it was gonna rock right of the tracks at high speeds. You kinda got used to it though, the ride was nice, and the scenery was awesome. They had these really cool open air cars, too, that were just that - completely open and hardly anything to stop you from just jumping (or falling) off. We rode right along the beach for a while and got to see a bunch of black-sand and even penguin beaches.
It doesn't sound like much but that wore me out, and when we got to our hotel in Christchurch, I was exhausted.The next day we wandered around Christchurch and Cathedral Square, and that was pretty cool. First we walked along the Avon River and found a cheap kayaking place, so we did that for a little while.
Next we walked through the Botanical Gardens of Hagley Park. There were tons of ancient trees, including a christmas tree the size of a several story building that you could walk around inside, and an even bigger sequoia.
Near Cathedral Square was Ernest Rutherford's museum - actually in and around his actual laboratory and the lecture hall he actually taught in - that was pretty cool.
Cathedral Square was very cool. It is the tourist and historical center of Christchurch. All the buildings are early 19th century made from hewn stone in Old English style. There are performances, shops, markets, giant-life-sized chess games, wizard blatherers (a guy dressed in a complete wizard suit stands in the square and shouts nonsense to anybody who'll listen) and an enormous 150 year old Christchurch Cathedral, the icon of the city, all in the Square.
That is the Christchurch Cathedral. We decided to climb up to the top of the bell tower (the tall thing on the left). That was slightly creepy - the stair was the narrowest, tightest, steepest spiraling staircase that went up pretty high. I wouldn't have known what to do if somebody had come back down while we were going up, because there was not enough room for anybody to pass by.I'll continue this post later, so check again later!
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