We have just become aware of an earthquake hitting Christchurch that has caused a lot of damage and some fatalities. We are well away from there and felt nothing. We are obviously ok. Our concerns right now are for our friends Frank and Karen who may be still in the area.
UPDATE – we have heard from Frank. They were in the center of Christchurch in Cathedral Square when the quake hit. Fortunately they are both ok. We are immensely pleased to hear this.
Category: Cruiser Connections
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Christchurch Earthquake
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Arrowtown/Queenstown
We had a bit of a lie in before leaving our motel. Partly due to the comfort. Mostly due to finishing off things on the internet. With the advice of our eldest, John, I’ve bought a better camera to work underwater. Long term blog readers may have noticed the far better quality of his underwater pics compared to mine and I want to do better (than my old ones).
Our plan was to drive to Arrowtown and then on to Queenstown to find a campsite. After leaving Wanaka I noticed that we were pretty low on fuel. We decided to keep going and chance it. I ended up feeling quite nervous as the road took us up into the clouds over a kilometer from sea level. There was a view point at the top but it was like the inside of a ping pong ball and I didn’t want to risk running out of fuel. Our GPS listed the nearest fuel station as being near Queenstown so we postponed Arrowtown and went straight for the fuel.
Now that we were in the Queenstown area we checked out a couple of holiday campgrounds there and after finding them a bit too crowded we headed out to the top 10 near the shotover river. This campsite was far better and up in the mountains so be booked a spot and put the tent out to air.
We then drove to Arrowtown and found it as quaint as we’d been told by many others who had encouraged us to go there. We had pies for lunch and then wandered around for a while. As the weather was perfect we decided to go for a nearby hike. On the way we saw a couple coming towards us waving madly. I took me a second to realize they were waving as and then a second more to realize it was Brian and Jodon from El Regalo who we’d first met out in Fakarava. What a nice surprise. We sat on a bench chatting for a while and catching up. They’d just been on the same hike we were heading for. They were moving around by bus and soon had to catch their’s. We exchanged phone numbers in case we can hook up again.
Our hike was a 2-3 hour loop around German Hill called Sawpit Gully – Arrow Gorge track. This was a very enjoyable hike albeit with a strenuous climb to begin with. Against Brian’s advice we went clockwise to get the steep climb over and done with and have a more leisurely descent. The high point of the hike didn’t quite reach the peak of German Hill. Helen and I had different oppinions on whether or not we should take the side trail to the top. We ended up with Helen seeking shade while I took to the summit.
We soon met up again and made our way down. The scenery was, as ever it seems round here, fantastic. We met an English couple by a waterfall and chatted for a while before heading down to town. After picking up some supplies in the supermarket we headed back to the campsite and set up all the bedding, chairs and tables in the tent before cracking open a beer for our pleasure.
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At the foot of Franz Josef
Our plans were to have an easy day followed by a long day. With the Saturday weather forecast deteriorating and not wanting to get up at the crack of dawn on Friday to pack the tent we decided to move into one of the small cabins here. So Thursday morning was spent drying the dew off the tent, packing it and moving into the cabin.
Just before lunch we were done and off for the 45 minute walk to the foot of the Franz Josef glacier. This time we hiked from the car park along the wide bed of rubble formed by the river running under the glacier. As we approached the glacier itself we could see the maw of the river which was gushing strongly carrying large chunks of ice from within the glacier. We ate our lunch here taking in the valley and ever present waterfalls around us.
Back at the car we decided to drive to Fox Glacier 20km away to have a quick look around there. We drove to a point where we could see the glacier before returning to the small village to book our guided day hike for today. We also visited a campsite there and decided we’ll move into a cabin there after our day hike.
In the evening as we were settling down we ran into Don and Marie from Freezing Rain who had just arrived and moved into a cabin very near to us with Don’s sister, Sue. Inevitably we all ended up chatting the evening away over bottles of wine – a very nice surprise and end to the day.
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Museum, Fudge & Movie
In the morning we were back in Christchurch to visit the Canterbury Museum. It was very well presented and had a number of very interesting sections. We were in the building for about 2 hours before returning to the car to eat our prepared lunch.
We then moved the car to another car park to visit the Fudge Cottage which had a tour of the fudge kitchen at 2pm. While waiting for the tour to start we were able to nibble on free sampled of fudge. By 2pm we had just enough interested parties for the tour to commence. We were taken to the kitchen and showed some fudge already on the boil. As the fudge was taken through it’s various stages of preparation we were told about the history of the place and given more samples to try out. The best moment was when we were given a spoon of hot/cooling freshly made fudge to sample. My heart nearly gave out at that point.
After the fudge factory it was back to the campsite for an hour or so before heading to the mall to meet up with Frank and Karen from Tahina. Having met up we had a simple but tasty dinner at the food court before heading in to watch “The King’s Speech” which was a truly excellent movie. After the movie we stopped for a couple of beers and more of a chat.
This morning we have to decide what to do. We could stay. We could move on. Weather on the west coast remains poor to mediocre for the next 5 days but it’s better on the east coast. At this point we have not made up our minds.
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Motueka
The weather refused to improve for rest of the day in Wellington. We decided to go for the 4pm showing of the Green Hornet and eat later. We struggled through the cold rain the short distance to the cinema and settled in for a very mediocre movie. Our alternate was to watch the King’s Speech which in hindsight would have been the better choice. However, we felt a drama could wait for DVD while an action movie was best watched on the big screen. It passed the time.
We ended up eating in the food court in the cinema complex where we had a good sized curry for a very reasonable price. We ended up spending the rest of the evening in the hotel room with a bottle of wine watching another movie.
This morning we took the ferry to the south island. There were warnings of an uncomfortable ride with 4 meter swells. The ferry did swing around a bit but nothing like we’ve got used to in similar conditions.
Just before arriving in Picton we gave Jackie and Gary a call on Inspiration Lady as we knew they could be in the area. It turned out they were and were glad to meet up for lunch – as were we. It was nice to meet them and hear what they’ve been up to for the last month. In fact we had a pretty good feeling all round. A lot of that had to be the sunshine which greeted us in the south island.
After lunch we headed off in the direction of the Abel Tasman National Park where we intend to hike soon. We’ve stopped off at a Top 10 campsite and pitched the tent. We plan on relaxing a little tomorrow and use the time to make up our minds what to do in the park.
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