There Are No Words...

To describe New Zealand as "spectacular" would be a gross understatament. The place is unbelievable! It's just so interesting and every corner yields a new kind of landscape.

After arriving on Wednesday in Christchurch, I met Nathalie at the hostel and we walked around the city, which is really pretty and very England-esque. There's even a river running through it called the Avon River and a lot of England-inspired architecture, such as Tudor and Gothic. That night we went to a restaurant/bar and listened to a really good jazz singer who sounded a lot like Diana Krall and sang a bunch of Joni Mitchell, all whilst drinking awesome New Zealand pinot noir. The next morning we met our rental car, a '98 Toyota Corolla. I drove first, on the SH1 toward the lakes region, our destination Lake Tekapo. The drive up was breathtaking...we passed the small town of Geraldine, where a lot of the scenes of Rohan in The Lord of the Rings were filmed. Once we got to the lake I took about eleventy-billion photos of the mountains surrounding the lake. We took a bush walk up to the top of Mt. John, a pretty arduous hike for me, not being used to inclines of any kind, not to mention steep ones. At the top, Nathalie sprinted up...she's in much better shape than me, needless to say. The view was worth it, though, and the whole setting was very peaceful. Since it was getting dark by the time we got down, we decided to stay in a hostel on Lake Tekapo. It was a very clean and cosy lodge-type backpackers. Nathalie and I had our own dorm room, a plus after the noisy night we had previously in Christchurch. We had a quiet night in, cooked dinner and watched a couple of videos with the rest of the backpackers, mostly from the Magic Bus tour, a hop-on, hop-off bus company. I also mapped out my road trip in Oz a bit more. I decided to start going up the coast rather than down to Melbourne because after the cold NZ weather, I'm going to be jonesing for some warmth.

Yesterday morning, we set out for Mt. Cook, the tallest peak in all Australasia. Although we couldn't see the damn thing because the clouds were surrounding it. I guess they call it Aoraki ("The Cloud Piercer") for a reason. We did a couple of small bush walks to see the mountain better and to see the Tasman Glacier. After that, we drove to Dunedin, about 3.5 hours Southeast on the coast. Dunedin is the second city of the Southern Island (the first being Christchurch) and home of the first university in NZ. So there are plenty of students everywhere and all the typical chatacteristics of a college town. Dunedin is also Gaelic for Edinburgh and they call it the "Edinburgh of the South." I can't say that it really reminds me of Edinburgh, but I suppose it has a very UK feel to it, just like Christchurch. It has plenty of cool cafes and music shops, so I instantly liked it. Especially after I saw a "Bronx Bagel" shop and a cafe called "Tull," which was Jethro Tull themed. The hostel we're staying at is really nice and homey, sort of like the hostel Alli and I stayed at in Liverpool. It's just a renovated house and pretty small, so everyone cooks and eats together. We got in around dinnertime last night and just walked around the main streets a bit. This morning, we walked to a small market where they were selling hand-crafted jewellry, knitted hats and other crafts. Then we visited the train station, the first one in NZ, the botanic gardens (saw some great birds in the aviary) and the University of Otago. We then took a tour of the Speight's Brewery, "The Pride of the South." The tour was very informational, but a bit on the boring side. I was expecting something like the Heineken Brewery tour or the Guinness Factory, where you get to do fun things. We did get to sample 6 beers at the end and watched a bunch of different advertisements for the beer, pretty funny stuff especially since they are all about these meat-headed cowboy types who epitomize the "Southern Man."

So that's the news to date. Tonight is the first rugby match of the season between the All Blacks (the NZ national team) and Ireland, so it should be interesting to witness some of the antics. Tomorrow we leave Dunedin for the scenic route along the South coast of the island toward Te Anau. Then Milford Sound, Queenstown and the West coast toward Fransz Josef Glacier. And maybe if we have time Kaikoura. Then on Sunday it's off to Nelson and Picton for the ferry to the North Island. Man, time is really flying...