Pacific sunrise!

Flight around Kaikoura

Perfect weather for a flight in a PA28 around Kaikoura.  Not a cloud in the sky.

Gabriel my room mate at the fishtanklodge is a pilot from St Martin (French Caribbean) he offered to fly me around Kaikoura and I accepted and was not disappointed at all.

Besides being really ill from the turbulence and sudden movements that plagued our flight the overall experience was amazing, I could see the Kaikoura mountains, all of the beaches, the peninsula and  the seal colony from above and have to say the views were breathtaking.

Just about to take off!

Getting excited!

Kaikoura peninsula

Update

Hello all!

I just thought that I would update you on what I am doing at the moment considering the blog entries have become less frequent recently.

I left Christchurch on the 13th of January and got myself a job at a nice seafront hostel in kaikoura working for accommodation.  I am using my time here to make friends, go hiking, fishing, swimming and to generally explore the Kaikoura peninsula and the surrounding areas.

So far I've met some amazing people and am so glad that I met them.  I'm planning on climbing Mt Fyffe and possibly doing the paddleboarding too!

The dolphin and Whale watching is still on the table too but I just have to pick one of them to do!

I've met up with some friends who I met on the stray tour in FranzJosef and will be doing much more activities too!  I am still yet to capture the sunrise over the Pacific ocean!

It was pretty impossible to get a paid job in Kaikoura because I'm only here for another 10 days so no one would take me on as a temp.  So now I'm just watching my wallet and trying to find the best free activities Kaikoura has to offer haha!

I'm also doing a bit of Geology/earthquake research in preparation for the internship.  It seems a bit keen of me but learning the basics again is pretty important in my opinion.

If I take any more decent pictures of the activities I'm doing or the sights in Kaikoura I'll make sure to upload them.

Sunset in Kaikoura

Images of Kaikoura

Looking down Mt Fryffe road towards Kaikoura, good job we hitch hiked it would have taken all day to get there.

Looking up the Mt Fryffe road, just gives you an idea how long it is as it disappears into the distance

Looking up at Mt Fryffe

Kaikoura 

Seal colony and Kaikoura peninsula in the distance

The Pacific ocean. 

 I still find it such a strange and somewhat frightening thought that for thousands upon thousands of miles in that direction there is barely anything.  (Apart from small island nations e.g.Nauru and other island chains e.g. Polynesia and the Galapagos). 

The pacific ocean is so so vast it is bigger than all of the land on earth combined covering over 46% of the earths surface!  Almost half! 

I took this while Gabriel was fishing.  Kaikoura is such a beautiful place.  

It's very surprising how quickly the weather can change around here though, literaly 5 minutes after I took this picture a storm blew in from the lower east coast.  Ridiculously turbulent winds sent pebbles tumbling down the beach and fishermen packing.

Kaikoura day 1

Within 5 minutes of getting off my intercity bus to Kaikoura I had landed myself a job in a hostel, cleaning for 3 hours a day for accommodation, not a bad deal at all.

After the morning shift me and a couple of friends hitch hiked to the seal colony down the coast from us and walked about for hours getting stupidly close to the seals.  

A very risky activity but so fascinating to see these wild animals up close in their natural habitat.  Of course we tried our best not to disturb them and keep a sensible distance away from them, so please don't think I'm some seal harassing buffoon haha. 

It was a lovely day today, clear blue skies and a nice cooling breeze.  I've not had weather like this since the North Island!

Christchurch day 2 - city tour

I then booked a double decker bus tour around the red zone of Christchurch and the surrounding areas.  There was a good commentary given by the bus driver which revealed how much the city has changed.

A lot of the buildings in the city that survived the earthquake still have to be taken down because they dont meet new building regulations.  Some buildings e.g. The police department building are even leaning!  No one is allowed anywhere near certain buildings and the city is going to spend billions of dollars on recreating the city centre of Christchurch. The proposed plans include creating various green spaces and an urban village!  Many of these ideas were given to the council by the inhabitants of Christchurch when they were asked for their opinions on the recreation of the city centre.

Various historical buildings e.g. The main Anglican cathedral and the Roman Catholic cathedral have been near enough destroyed and are going to be either rebuilt or torn down.  There is still some debate as to what to do with these two buildings.

I was then taken to Sumner and onto Mt Pleasant where I got some amazing views of Christchurch and the foothills of the southern alps.

Christchurch Anglican cathedral.

The "temporary" cardboard Anglican cathedral

Flooded foundations

Roman Catholic cathedral before the earthquake

And after the earthquake

Some buildings that weren't completely destroyed, such as the Catholic cathedral have got piles of metal shipping containers leaning on their weakened walls so as to prevent further collapse.

Some new buildings have horizontal wooden beams installed instead of just the normal concrete and steel beams.  This is so that the building will flex in the event of another earthquake or aftershock.

Views from the top of mt pleasant

Christchurch

Sumner beach

Lyttelton harbour

Christchurch day 2

Today I visited Canterbury museum and took a city bus tour.

Canterbury museum was very good!  I walked around and visited the various exhibitions e.g. The graffiti exhibition and looked at the antarctic, geology and history sections.

  Interesting illustration on the side of the museum.  It shows the skeleton of an extinct Moa holding a kiwi bird, kiwi populations are sadly declining. 

The early settlers of New Zealand

The Moa were hunted to extinction by the Maori

Story of the first colonial settlers.  Christchurch was settled by English Anglican settlers.

Details on the exploits of Captain James Cook

Saw the Graffiti exhibition, particularly liking this one

And this one, done by Banksy

Then visited the Sir Robert Stewart Hall of Antarctic Discovery.  

My camera is a bit damaged from all of the wet weather I experienced on the west coast, so i apologise for the mistiness of some of my photos. 

I then went through the Geology section of the museum and read up on earthquakes, I'll be needing to do a bit of research before my internship begins in Feb!  This is a decent enough start.

So far from home