Christmas in Christchurch
Even though I've missed you all, I managed to have a great Christmas in Christchurch. Gen and Denise arrived on Christmas Eve, after an Epic Journey from the North Island. The following day, we were disappointed to discover that is was pouring rain! Boo! Fortunately, the rain cleared up, the clouds went away and by 2pm it was a scorcher of a day. Friends of my flatmates came around and we had a lovely barbeque in the garden... basking in the sunshine. It didn't feel like Christmas at all! Then yesterday, St Stephen's Day, we spent the day at the beach, flying our kite, playing frisbee and generally having tremendous fun. We'll be leaving Christchurch tomorrow for our trip around Abel Tasman, meeting up with Myles and Eithne tomorrow night in Nelson. ..... Happy Days!
I'll be sure to take MILLIONS of pictures and post them here when I get back.
Happy New Year to you all......
Maz :)
Happy Christmas Everybody!!!
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to wish you all a very Happy Christmas. I'll miss you all loads - but at least the warm sunny weather will console me somewhat. We're having a BBQ tomorrow (Christmas day), it'll be a new one for me, but I'm looking forward to it. Genny and Denise will be with me tomorrow and should in fact be getting very close to Christchurch as I type ( although given the amount of drama they have encountered thus far - that's not guaranteed)!!
I also want to say a special thanks to all of you who were thinking of and praying for my new niece Maria. You'll all be glad to hear that she has had her operation and I'm told she is recovering nicely.
Genny, Denise and I will be hitting the road after Christmas on our grand tour of New Zealand. We're meeting up with Myles and Eithne on the 29th for our yachting trip in Abel Tasman, so I'm very very very very excited about that. Keep watching here to read about our adventures
Pictures from the Skytower in Auckland
You may recall from last week's posts that I forgot to bring my camera with me when Trish, Paul, Gen and I went to the top of Auckland's sky tower... well here are some photos that Trish took from that evening...
It's a Beautiful (Paddy's) Day!
Great news!!! We managed to secure some U2 tickets for the concert in Auckland on the 17th of March next year. There'll be six of us going; Me, Andrew and Rori (pals of mine from work), Trish, Paul and Genny. I'm so very excited about it all. We were very lucky to get the tickets though. Trish queued up at the post office trying to get them, I was online and on the telephone, but neither of us had any luck. It was Andrew who saved the day, so he's got four new Irish best friends who are very very very very very grateful! :)
Weekend in Auckland
As I told you all last week, I went to see Genny in Auckland at the weekend. I left Christchurch on the 6:30 am flight on Saturday morning and to my astonishment, I met someone I knew on the plane... teeny tiny world! Ina, one of the German girls that I've been going surfing with, was headed to Auckland with her friend to do some traveling around the North Island before returning to Germany for good. So that was a nice surprise, and it was nice to have someone to chat to on the flight. Another cool thing about the flight was that we got to see Mount Taranaki from the air... like this:
I landed in Auckland at 8:50am and said goodbye to Ina. Trish and Paul (bless them) were at the airport to pick me up and we all headed into the city centre to find Genny's hotel. After an amusing series of wrong turns (Paul was driving - but I got the blame for most of them) we managed to find our way. Gen was staying in a hotel on Beach Rd - guess which room number... 202! That won't mean much to a lot of you, but Gen and I started out sharing a room in 202 Elm Park in Limerick, so we thought it was all very symbolic. After a v nice breakfast in the cafe beside the hotel, the four of us headed off to have some adventures.
The first place we went to see was Devonport, across the bay from the city. There are some really good views of the Auckland skyline from there, as well as some spectacular views of all the sailing boats in the bay. Auckland is known as the city of the sails, because it's got the highest ratio of boat ownership of any other city in the world. Allegedly, there's a boat for every six people there. Soooooo, all I'd have to do is make 5 friends in Auckland and I'd be guaranteed to know someone that could take me out sailing.... a plan for next year maybe... ;)
Here are some of the views from Devonport
And here's Paul relaxing on a swing...
After our trip to Devonport, we headed to the Zoo to see all the animals. I saw kiwis (the flightless bird, not the New Zealand people - I've seen loads of them) for the first time, but you're not allowed to take pictures of them. I made up for that by taking pictures of pretty much EVERY other animal in the Zoo. I may have gotten a wee bit carried away....
The Giant Tortises were soooooooooo cool! I want one as a pet when I grow up!
I just really like the way this kangaroo was sitting... watching the world go by....
We spent a lot of time watching the tiger, he was really impressive... and loud!
After our trip to the Zoo, we headed back to the Hotel where we had a wee rest before going out for dinner. After a lovely meal in a turkish restaurant, Cafe Midnight Express, we went up the sky tower (the big tower type thing sticking up over the Auckland skyline in all my pictures above) and looked out over the city. I had forgotten to bring my camera with me (d'oh!), but Trish took some pictures and I'll be posting them here when I get them.
The next day, we decided to get a view of the city by day, so we headed to Mount Eden, the largest of the dormant (or maybe they're extinct... hang on, I'll check google.... hmmm mixed opinion there... let's just say dormant then) volcanos in Auckland. Spectacular views, but once again, I don't think my camera could do it justice...
A friendly tourist took the following picture of the four of us, but as you can see, Paul is in disguise with his hat and sunglasses, so I doubt anyone will recognise him...
Now you'd imagine from looking at this building that it's a train station. It looks like a train station and it has Railway Station written across the top of it. But you'd be mistaken... it's actually a hotel, and they clearly have lots of people in trying to buy rail tickets, because when you go in the front door, there are a lot of signs saying; "This is not a train station"... v helpful... Kiwis and their sense of humour...
So Trish and Paul headed back to Hamilton at about 3:30pm, and then I made my way back to Christchurch and arrived there at 10:00pm where Eunice was kindly waiting at the airport to give me a lift home. I had a really great weekend, and Trish and Paul deserve HUGE thanks for coming to Auckland so early on Saturday morning to pick me up and for driving us around for the weekend, so
Go raibh mile maith agaibh to you both!
Genny's Here! Genny's Here! Genny's HERE!!
Yeay! Joy! Yipee! Woo hoo! Genny landed in Auckland last night (well, I'm assuming she did, I haven't heard anything to the contrary). And instead of waiting til Christmas to meet up, as was the original plan, I threw caution to the wind and in a mad fit of extravagence I booked flights to Auckland to go see her this weekend! I'm BESIDE myself with excitement! Trish is going to meet up with us to, so it should be a fantabulistic weekend... yeay!
I'll tell you all about it next week :)
