If you've read or at least looked at my blogs in the past you'll notice that I don't always put the most fancy picture up first. There's normally something better below. This is one of those posts.
Christchurch
What can I say about Christchurch? Well..I wasn't there long so not alot. The city isn't that big and seems kind of...flat.
It's nothing like any of the other places I'd visited so far.
If you google Christchurch then you'll see something like this:
Taken by me
Well actually it'll be more like this.
Amazing what a bit of sunshine and editing can do isn't it?
This street is very nice. The buildings look colourful and the cafe's look inviting but what you see (at least in my picture) is the whole thing. It's not like you arrive and the whole place looks retro like this.
It felt to me out of place. At the end of the street there's a park but again this just didn't seem like a park...or a square. It just felt....empty. perhaps the grey skies made a difference? I don't know.
In this picture I am standing at the end of the street. The tree at the other end is part of the park.
The trams are pretty cool though.
It kind of reminded me of Melbourne back in Australia but with Melbourne the little alleys, bars and pizzeria places were tucked away almost everywhere. This was all focussed around 1 street, or at least 1 area.
I decided to head to the market and saw this
Remind you of anything?
It's the amulet from Lord Of The Rings! I nearly bought it. I was in New Zealand afterall, where it was filmed.
I decided to stay somewhere a bit out of town. There's a place called New Brighton just on the outskirts which runs along a long beach. The surfs not bad there and the air bnb I booked offered to lend me some surf boards.
This is where I stayed
Yep it's a shed, well "annex" if you want to sound posh but basically a shed with a bed in it. No sink, no toilet, that's all in the main house so not ideal in the middle of the night lol
I tried surfing but the board was a short board (for tricks). Not only that but it was a short...short board which meant I couldn't even get my feet underneath me far enough to stand up. It was like trying to stand up on a body board. Nearly impossible.
I decided to see if there was anywhere nearby to visit so I rented a car off some bloke who had turned his house and drive into a car rental place and headed out of town to..
Akaroa
It turned out Christchurch had a hidden gem after all and this was it.
Driving round that corner was like driving across a boarder into another country. How can a place like this be so close?
The water kept changing from a blue to a turquoise. It seemed fluorescent with sunglasses on.
But then I saw this
"Dolphin Swimming And Adventure Harbour Cruises"
Could this be? Another chance to fulfil my childhood dream and swim with dolphins?
I noticed the photos were of Hectors Dolphins and from my previous experience I knew they were quite shy and swimming with them probably wasn't an option. But their little trailer was set up nearby so I thought I'd go and ask.
Yes, "this is the only place where we're allowed to swim with them" the guy said. Knowing that I only had the car for the day I asked when their next trip would be.
"In about 45 minutes, wanna join?"
It was expensive but heck why not?
I headed back to the car to somehow get changed in this tiny thing.
Hardly discrete
Then made my way down to the boat and suited up. (The wetsuit)
It wasn't very big.
"Have I just been scammed?" i thought. Only one way to find out...
No, not at all!
Within no time the dolphins showed up.
Since it was a small boat, they wern't as afraid and some were even doing back flips out the water showing off! I thought they were supposed to be shy?
These dolphins acted very different than the one's in Picton. They surfed the wake of the boat as we drove along and since we were in more or less a dingy, you could simply lean over the edge and you'd see them.
However I didn't take hardly any photos.
With something like this, you see alot more when you are looking out with your own eyes rather than through a camera. As I mentioned before, alot of time I had to lean over the edge to see them and didn't want to risk losing my phone, especially so close to the end of my travels.
But I took a couple of videos when the dolphins were approaching:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/EGhpqUq8VLsgS2Ad8
The people I was with were also very friendly. They didn't push in the way ti get videos/photos and they would even move out of the way for others. Something you don't see alot of nowadays.
Unlike my previous trip, on this one I finally got a chance to get in the water with the dolphins!
Here's the evidence
After an amazing trip on the boat I was in high spirits. Some of the guys from the trip were jumping/doing flips from the pier which looked like fun so I did a few jumps before drying off and taking this photo.
After getting changed and hanging my wet stuff up to dry, I decided to look around a bit more.
lol
And head out to the local shops. There was a nice pair of polarized sunglasses in one which I purchased since I'd recently lost my previous pair and it was a very sunny day so why not?!
It was a soverneer shop so I asked if there were any other spots to check out.
It turned out there was a lighthouse not too far away. Normally where there's a lighthouse, there's a view. So I jumped in the car and headed over there.
They weren't wrong, it was a nice view of the bay.
But I saw something in the bushes behind me which caught my attention.
It was a bird that I'd seen in a small zoo back in Rotorua
It was just a pigeon but not like the one's I'm used to seeing back home.
It's bigger than a normal pigeon that we all know and you won't find these picking up food off the floor in towns and cities. In contrast they seem quite rare. Pretty cool to look at with their blue/green feathers.
As my rental time began to run out, I had to make my way back to Christchurch. But I thought I'd stop and look back at this place.
Somewhere in there are pods of dolphins and all sorts of other sea life which up untill now has been protected. I hope it stays that way.
I stayed here for a while. As I looked out at the crystal blue water, I knew I'd seen almost everything. Despite still having another 6 months on my working visa, I felt like it was time to move on. Christchurch sadly was my last stay in New Zealand.
It was time to head back to quite possibly the most uncomfortable hostel I've ever been in 🤢 and a decisionI didn't think I'd follow through with...