Saturday, May 13, 2006
Sydney, Australia
The following day (May 1st) the Stray bus took me to Christchurch, the biggest city (town) on the South Island and the second biggest in New Zealand. Once I got off, I was so happy I wouldn't have to deal with Stray any more. (Of course, booking that bus had been a load of hassle - I won't bother with the details). Well, I wasn't quite finished with them: I walked past their office so asked if they had any discounts in Christchurch. "No." Good, now I was finished with them. That afternoon, I took the tram round the centre to get my bearings. It's not an efficient means of transport at all. It's there for the tourists and just trundles round this loop at walking pace.
Next day (oooh, just farted noticably in this quiet internet area, that's embarassing...yep, it's quite smelly too) I spent strolling round Christchurch. First I went to look at the Cathedral and Cathedral square. I really liked them. The cathedral isn't particularly grand or imposing, but is attractive and fits in really well with the design of the square. I appear to have just deleted my photo of it. Maybe I was just impressed because there's something of a lack of historic buildings in NZ.
Next, I looked into the old parliament house. It's built around a courtyard, very much in the style of a Cambridge (or I suppose Oxford) college. The corridors also managed to create the same feel of walking round a college - old, laden with history - despite being much yonger. In fact, the whole city reminded me of Cambridge. Same size, same kind of clean, pleasant, touristy feel. There's a river (funnily enough called the Avon) that snakes through the centre, and lots of nice green parks along its banks.
After lunch I went to the art gallery. Normally I walk round art galleries determinedly looking at all the paintings by the masters - Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh - and think "mmmm, very nice. These are, like, really significant paintings." But this gallery was the first one that really grabbed my attention and held it. One room had very dark paintings full of devils and the like, which would look very nice in Ali G's room [that's one of my friends, not the popular entertainer]. The next room was amazing - I wanted to just stay looking at the paintings for ages. They were mainly vast landscapes with a bit of stuff going on in the foreground. What enthralled me was party the amazing photo-realism and partly the unsettling sense that there was stuff going on I hadn't noticed. The artist was Kees Bruin, if you're interested. Next, I had a look round the 'Arts Centre', which used to be Canterbury University, and saw the cupboard where Ernest Rutherford carried out many of his early experiments.
The next day, 3rd of May. I took the Tranz-Alpine railway right across the centre of the island, from Christchurch on the East coast, to somewhere called Greymouth on the West. It's supposedly one of the greatest train journies on the world. Once I got there, I had 20 minutes to grab lunch, then I took a bus back to Christchurch. Some might see this as quite pointless, and afterwards I tended to agree with them. If I had been using the rail journey to get somewhere, I think I would have loved it. As it was, it felt like a bit of an anticlimax, especially considering how much I'd paid for the day. It was a nice journey however: alongside some big river gorges, over bridges, through tunnels. There were some mountains in the middle, but after Queenstown, I was quite unimpressed by them.
May 4th was my last day in New Zealand. It seems like I have to visit the museum in every town I go to. I missioned it round Christchurch's in the morning, but it was nothing special. I did sit on a (fixed) penny farthing bicycle, which was nice. Before heading back to the hostel for lunch, I took a turn round the botanical gardens which were resplendant in autumn colours, then walked through Christchurch's Christ's College. In the afternoon I took a bus out to a hill and walked up it. There were supposed to be great views from the top. There clearly weren't going to be becuase the weather was so shit, but walking up places is another thing I've got obsessed with, so I went anyway. From the top I saw lots of mist.
In the evening I did the last 'must do in New Zealand' thing: I went to a Maori performance. I found it a bit touristy and unauthentic: for example I don't think guitars were a traditional Maori instrument. But it was good fun. They got the men up on stage to 'teach' them the Haka. This just involved running through the actions, while we struggled to keep up and looked stupid.
I think I spent most of the evenings at Christchurch using the internet, which is fairly typical. My plan was that, before leaving New Zealand, I would get up to date with my journal, my sending photos home, and my blog (hah, see how well I did with that!) I did nearly do all the photos, and after a massive effort, got up to date with my journal (I finished just before landing in Australia, so that counts). It's more time consuming than you'd think.
I had some time the next morning before my flight, so I went to the Antarctic centre. Christchurch is big into Antarctica because the US has its main Antarctic base there, and lots of famous expeditions have left from there. It was banterous. I took a ride round in a snow-vehicle which went over really steep mounds, across a hill with a huge 'crevass' in the middle which was, like, 1 metre wide, and floated through a pond. I went into a simulated Antarctic storm which was supposed to be about -20 degrees with windchill. I also pondered the fate of Antarctica in the future. At the moment loads of countries are bound by a treaty which prohibits the commercial or military use of the continent. But the treaty expires in about 2050. With such a strain on world resources, I think it's inevitable that the world's last wilderness will disappear. Antarctica will be mined, drilled and exploited for its resources. Maybe it should be. I don't know.
As I flew up, across the country and west over the Tasmin sea, New Zealand gave me one last visual treat: I got an ariel view of the magnificent Southern Alps, running down the centre of the island.
The following day (May 1st) the Stray bus took me to Christchurch, the biggest city (town) on the South Island and the second biggest in New Zealand. Once I got off, I was so happy I wouldn't have to deal with Stray any more. (Of course, booking that bus had been a load of hassle - I won't bother with the details). Well, I wasn't quite finished with them: I walked past their office so asked if they had any discounts in Christchurch. "No." Good, now I was finished with them. That afternoon, I took the tram round the centre to get my bearings. It's not an efficient means of transport at all. It's there for the tourists and just trundles round this loop at walking pace.
Next day (oooh, just farted noticably in this quiet internet area, that's embarassing...yep, it's quite smelly too) I spent strolling round Christchurch. First I went to look at the Cathedral and Cathedral square. I really liked them. The cathedral isn't particularly grand or imposing, but is attractive and fits in really well with the design of the square. I appear to have just deleted my photo of it. Maybe I was just impressed because there's something of a lack of historic buildings in NZ.
Next, I looked into the old parliament house. It's built around a courtyard, very much in the style of a Cambridge (or I suppose Oxford) college. The corridors also managed to create the same feel of walking round a college - old, laden with history - despite being much yonger. In fact, the whole city reminded me of Cambridge. Same size, same kind of clean, pleasant, touristy feel. There's a river (funnily enough called the Avon) that snakes through the centre, and lots of nice green parks along its banks.
After lunch I went to the art gallery. Normally I walk round art galleries determinedly looking at all the paintings by the masters - Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh - and think "mmmm, very nice. These are, like, really significant paintings." But this gallery was the first one that really grabbed my attention and held it. One room had very dark paintings full of devils and the like, which would look very nice in Ali G's room [that's one of my friends, not the popular entertainer]. The next room was amazing - I wanted to just stay looking at the paintings for ages. They were mainly vast landscapes with a bit of stuff going on in the foreground. What enthralled me was party the amazing photo-realism and partly the unsettling sense that there was stuff going on I hadn't noticed. The artist was Kees Bruin, if you're interested. Next, I had a look round the 'Arts Centre', which used to be Canterbury University, and saw the cupboard where Ernest Rutherford carried out many of his early experiments.
The next day, 3rd of May. I took the Tranz-Alpine railway right across the centre of the island, from Christchurch on the East coast, to somewhere called Greymouth on the West. It's supposedly one of the greatest train journies on the world. Once I got there, I had 20 minutes to grab lunch, then I took a bus back to Christchurch. Some might see this as quite pointless, and afterwards I tended to agree with them. If I had been using the rail journey to get somewhere, I think I would have loved it. As it was, it felt like a bit of an anticlimax, especially considering how much I'd paid for the day. It was a nice journey however: alongside some big river gorges, over bridges, through tunnels. There were some mountains in the middle, but after Queenstown, I was quite unimpressed by them.
May 4th was my last day in New Zealand. It seems like I have to visit the museum in every town I go to. I missioned it round Christchurch's in the morning, but it was nothing special. I did sit on a (fixed) penny farthing bicycle, which was nice. Before heading back to the hostel for lunch, I took a turn round the botanical gardens which were resplendant in autumn colours, then walked through Christchurch's Christ's College. In the afternoon I took a bus out to a hill and walked up it. There were supposed to be great views from the top. There clearly weren't going to be becuase the weather was so shit, but walking up places is another thing I've got obsessed with, so I went anyway. From the top I saw lots of mist.
In the evening I did the last 'must do in New Zealand' thing: I went to a Maori performance. I found it a bit touristy and unauthentic: for example I don't think guitars were a traditional Maori instrument. But it was good fun. They got the men up on stage to 'teach' them the Haka. This just involved running through the actions, while we struggled to keep up and looked stupid.
I think I spent most of the evenings at Christchurch using the internet, which is fairly typical. My plan was that, before leaving New Zealand, I would get up to date with my journal, my sending photos home, and my blog (hah, see how well I did with that!) I did nearly do all the photos, and after a massive effort, got up to date with my journal (I finished just before landing in Australia, so that counts). It's more time consuming than you'd think.
I had some time the next morning before my flight, so I went to the Antarctic centre. Christchurch is big into Antarctica because the US has its main Antarctic base there, and lots of famous expeditions have left from there. It was banterous. I took a ride round in a snow-vehicle which went over really steep mounds, across a hill with a huge 'crevass' in the middle which was, like, 1 metre wide, and floated through a pond. I went into a simulated Antarctic storm which was supposed to be about -20 degrees with windchill. I also pondered the fate of Antarctica in the future. At the moment loads of countries are bound by a treaty which prohibits the commercial or military use of the continent. But the treaty expires in about 2050. With such a strain on world resources, I think it's inevitable that the world's last wilderness will disappear. Antarctica will be mined, drilled and exploited for its resources. Maybe it should be. I don't know.
As I flew up, across the country and west over the Tasmin sea, New Zealand gave me one last visual treat: I got an ariel view of the magnificent Southern Alps, running down the centre of the island.
# posted by Alex @ 4:55 AM 
