No news is good news... or something...
Hi everyone, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t updated you all with any fabulous, exciting adventures lately…. That’s ‘cos I haven’t had any recently. It’s been very quiet and I’ve been very well behaved so I have…
The Ireland v All Blacks match was a bit of a disappointment. I went out on the Saturday night and stayed out to watch the match, which started at 3:30am our time, in a pub. I started out in the Holy Grail (‘New Zealand’s biggest sports bar… allegedly), but when me and some other Irish people stood for the National Anthem, we had ice-cubes thrown at us… not very sporting. So I went to Sullivans, an Irish bar, for the second half. It was bright when I left the pub after the match at about 5:30am. It was a very strange feeling.
The weekend just gone was our company Christmas party. It was held in a winery about and hour north of Christchurch. It was a nice night, but I was very disorientated to be in summer clothes when there was a Christmas Tree in the vicinity…. It’s just wrong!
Labour Weekend part IV
Our last day of the trip was spent white water rafting down the Buller river, which is North of Greymouth. It cost us just $120 for the day (lunch was included) and it was sooooo worth it!!
The water wasn't as high as it would normally be at that time of year because Winter in New Zealand was fairly mild and dry this year. That kind of suited me though as wee small rapids were quite enough for me thank you very much
So at 9am, our guides and general minders for the day Josh, Pat and Christine (very sorry if I've spelt your name wrong..) arrived at the hostel to pick us up and bring us to the river, which was about and hour and half's drive away. A quick change into our wetsuits later and we were making our way down to the water with our boat over our heads.
We paddled our way down the river, went through a few rapids and had lunch by the river bank.
Then afterwards, we set off again and stopped at a waterfall where we took a wee dip under the fall…
Our next stop was a cliff jump into the river. We climbed up a ten metre cliff (not an easy feat in wetsuit booties and life jackets). The three of us climbed up and Owen was the first one to jump. Being very scared of heights (well, more scared depths really.. and falling into them…) there was no way in hell I was climbing back down that cliff.
So I jumped with my eyes shut tight. It turns out that this was not, in fact, one of my better ideas because, while it all started out well (see how I'm all nice and straight in the picture) my legs swung out in front of me and I didn't realise that had happened because my eyes were closed. The result was that I landed flat on my arse and the noise reverberated around the canyon and I spent the next two weeks wincing everytime I had to get out of my chair... delightful..
As we made our way back to Greymouth, we encountered one of New Zealand's (many) one way bridges. I mentioned them in an earlier post and just to refresh your memory, the idea is that when you don't have the right of way, you have to wait at your end of the bridge if you see a car coming the other direction. All well in good in theory, but not necessarily in practice. We came to a one way bridge in our bus with the boat on the trailer behind and we had the right of way.
At the other end of the bridge, a German saw us coming and still went onto the bridge (as did the car behind him). We all met half way and even though we had the right of way and it'd be really difficult for us to reverse, the other cars refused to back up off the bridge. There then followed a 10 minute Mexican stand-off on a Kiwi bridge with a German (along with the English, Irish, Australian and Canadian people in our bus... v multiculteral). In fairness, the German couldn't go anywhere with the other car behind him refusing to move also, but I don't think he was inclined to do so in any case.
Eventually, a local man from the German's side of the bridge walked up onto the bridge and told the two drivers in no uncertain terms that they were in the wrong and they had to back up…. VICTORY for us! What's really surprising is that this doesn't happen more often. Josh said it had never happened to him before... amazing!
So off we went again, but we had one more stop on the way back to Greymouth. We had seen the price list at a filling station on the way, and we definitely had to stop to take a picture on the way back…..
And that was the end of our fabulous weekend on the West Coast. We drove back to Christchurch on Monday evening and I rolled into bed at about 11pm exhausted.... but what a great weekend!!!
Labour Weekend Part III
So a week later I get around to adding some more pictures from the labour weekend
These pictures are from our trip to Fox Glacier. It cost $95 for a day hike up the glacier with a guide and it was well worth it! It was slow enough going and our guide had to cut a path for us with a pick at several points… very explorer like…
Just below the Glacier, the valley looks very much like where you'd expect the doors to the mines of Moria to be...
Labour Weekend Part II
We got to Fax Glacier about an hour or so before sunset, and we made our way to Gillespie Beach to watch the sunset. It was another first for Owen ‘cos he’d never seen the sun set over the sea before. It was really lovely, and behind us were mountains and glaciers… not typical beach-type scenery….
So after that we made our way back to the hostel, where I met a guy from Ballinrobe (of all places!). He knew some Louisburgh people, I knew a friend of his from Partry.. it was the typical Irish people abroad scenario. It was nice to meet someone from home though. Anyway, it was an early night for the three of us, because the following day, we went hiking on a glacier. See part III
Labour weekend part I
Monday the 24th of October was a bank holiday here so two of my new friends from work, Owen and Eunice, and I went off to the West Coast to have some adventures for ourselves. We left Christchurch straight after work (ish) on the Friday evening and made our way over Author’s pass to Greymouth
So Greymouth is a funny place. The men there sometimes go to the toilet (as you’d expect), but the women… oh no… toilets are not the place for the women of Greymouth. They go to restrooms:
Now in fairness, it’s not just Greymouth that has stoopid one-way bridges, they’re all over New Zealand. The idea is that one direction of traffic has the right of way and this is signposted as you approach the bridge so you know whether you have the right of way or not. Why they couldn’t just have built proper two lane bridges in the first place is beyond me. Anyway, in Greymouth, the train needs to cross the river too. So instead of building maybe another bridge or adding a bit on to the road bridge, the good Kiwis of Greymouth said to themselves… let’s save a bit of money and get the train to go over the same bridge as the cars… all in one lane. Like this:
Now for this sign, I'm looking for some interesting captions.
My favourite's so far are:
"Beware: Wheel thieves operate in this area"
"Safety Notice: Always use ROUND wheels on your bicycle"
I'm expecting lots of comments please and thank you very much...
