Christchurch

Hi!!!

So I left yesterday from Queenstown, hopped on the Stray bus at 7:30 in the morning and got to Christchurch yesterday afternoon. The bus was good. There were only nine of us on it. Everyone was really friendly. Most people were on the last legs of their journeys. I guess that's the downside of getting on in the South. Most people are heading back up to Auckland for their flights out. But oh well. I was only on it for the day anyway. But the driver kinda takes the backroutes and finds all the gorgeous, not completely touristy areas (hence the name Stray). It was beautiful. Lots of hills and lakes and the clouds here have this crazy phenomenon of being so low all the time. I thought it was just Queenstown in the valley, but it's like that all over. They just kind of lie across the hills. It's really pretty. The bus makes stops for lunch, whenever people feel like taking pictures, and of course to let the sheep get out of the way. Lol. The first place the driver stopped he even got out his camera it was so gorgeous. He made a comment about how he doesn't often do that! Unfortunately this is when I realized that my camera has decided not to turn on anymore. The light blinks like it thinks it's on, but the screen is black. :-( I found a camera shop in Christchurch which was closed yesterday, but I'll head over there again today. I'll most likely just get a new one.

We arrived yesterday about an hour ahead of schedule, so about 4:00. I dropped by stuff at a hostel and walked to Emily's work. She had to work till later so I walked around long enough to remember that it's Sunday and everything's closed so I went back to her apartment. Christchurch is the biggest city on the South Island and the second biggest in the country. It's pretty sprawled out, but Emily lives and works very close to downtown so it's easy enough.

It was crazy rainy and gross when I got here so I don't really feel like I've given the city a chance to prove it's greatness yet, but we'll see. Emily doesn't have to work this week after tomorrow so we were thinking we might head over to the West coast (Christchurch is on the East coast) and do a trek. It's basically a 5-day hike where you go and stay in huts and hike about 10km per day. And since it's the off-season it's pretty cheap to do right now. The two we're looking at go along the beach for some parts and are among the nine "Great Walks" in NZ. So depending on our transportation cabilities (Emily thinks she might be able to borrow a car) we will probably do that.

After that I will probably hop on the bus again and head up to Wellington. I'm not sure how far I will go before I start to look for work. Winter's a bad time to be looking. Tourism is low and people are trying to cut costs, but in a month or so it should pick up. And I do still want to WWOOF so I might just do that for a bit until the busier season.

But that's it for now!! Emily has Internet at her house which is SUPER nice so you should all get on skype or facebook or something and we'll chat!!

Love, Laura