Christchurch

The last time I stood in this spot was 10 years go before the earthquakes, on subsequent visits the city centre had still been cordoned off. Most of the damaged buildings have been pulled down and there are empty spaces or car parks in their place. Great swaths of residential areas have been red zoned and are now just wobbly roads and gardens that have all melted into one long fenceless garden, it all looks very inviting and meadow like but it can never be built on again. The financial effects of the earthquakes cost 20% of New Zealand's GPD, compared to 1% hurricane Katrina cost the United States.

 

This was an old stadium, ground is all bubbled now from the effects of liquefaction - the quakes liquefy what's under the ground, and liquid bubbles up through the ground and solidifies again. One of the big effects of the quakes was the lowering of large areas of land which in turn raised the water table, which makes flooding more likely as there is less drainage space for water to soak into.

 

 

This building was interesting because its not often you get a cross section of an actual building to see how it was made. I took this picture as a reference in case I need to build a big stone building, for example for Cuthbert when he becomes a saint.



I stayed with my relative Jane who lives up a hill and her house did not fall over, but her neighbours down the hill did and the one above the back of her garden became red stickered and is now abandoned. Jane is like a warm blanket, she made she feel totally at home straight away. Jane made me laugh a lot, especially her disparaging remarks about her own dogs because they're not really proper dogs and since they had their hair cut they are almost embarrassing. They are good dogs though. I enjoyed a lovely domestic evening with Jane and John watching some Bear Grylls reality show about women on an island who only had a week to go before they were rescued but still had no leader and spent most of the time bitching about each other and getting huffy as opposed to doing anything constructive, eventually the ones that wanted a leader elected some pro active doers who managed to turn the whole thing around in remarkable fashion.

Kaikoura

 

After one final breakfast at F and D's it was time to depart, I bid a temporary goodbye to my dear hosts and adoptive family.

The ferry crossing to Picton was lovely, good weather and one of my favourite films showing in the movie room, Cuthbert even had a nice open air spot away from the smell of oil and wee that seemed to surround the campervans, and possibly some effluent that was coming from the sheep transporter.
At Seddon I picked up Pedro, a hitchhiker who had been waiting for 2 hours poor guy for a ride, and 2 hours somewhere else, he was heading to Christchurch, I said I was stopping in Kaikoura for the night and going to Christchurch the next day.

I stayed at Dusky Backpackers and on check in I was reminded why I had booked there - spa pool. Pedro decided to stay too and ride along to Christchurch the next day as at 8pm it wasn't the best time of day for more hitch hiking.
Looking North the town reminded me of Jasper in Canada:

 



The next day I walked the Kaikoura Peninsula track which goes around the headland, Fredaricka - an Italian traveller I met in the spa pool the night before accompanied me for the first section, she had walked the track yesterday. She turned back at the car park at the end of the road and I continued on, it was a lovely walk.

 On retuning to Dusky Lodge backpackers or whatever it was called, I collected Pedro and we continued to Christchurch, we stopped for a nice pie and coffee at a place called Twin Rivers café that had a very nice ornamental garden with an oblong pond, rather like the Blue Peter Garden pond except this garden was in sun. Pedro despite not having much money was very generous and wanted to buy the lunch, which he did, what a cool hitchhiker, I dropped Pedro at a YHA in Christchurch and I went onto Jane's.



Thorndon Fair

A nice Sunday was had at Thorndon fair with Francesca and Cara, at the botanic garden end of Tinakori was a happy bunch of Morris Dancers which was a good start, I love Morris Dancers, joy full happy people, ringing little bells,  skipping about and knocking bits of wood together.
I wasn't going to buy anything but was drawn towards the hippy pants on a mannequin outside one of the market stalls, Cara wanted the same pants so we both tried them on and a whole bunch more, Francesca joined in and because of our interest the stand became very busy as people came in to see what all the fuss was about. We all bought some hippy pants.

 

Hiking the Bernese Oberland Switzerland

To write my blog I find I need a time pressure, sitting in an internet café having to put coins in every hour would do it, but in a home environment with my own computing device and a kettle nearby I find that all that happens is I drink tea.
I've had about 5 cups of Camomile tea in this attempt, I don't usually drink Camomile tea but I'm feeling a bit snufflely so thought some hot tea night help. The cup is also quite small, hence 5 cups, and I usually only drink 2 thirds of it because the bottom bit had gotten cold.

Perhaps I'll write about tea instead for a while, here is a great quote about tea making from The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movie:

Muriel: Tea is a herb that's been dried out so to bring it back to life, you have to infuse it in boiling water. That is boiling water and everywhere I've been in this country, they slap down a cup of tepid nonsense, you know, with the tea bag lying beside it, which means I've got to go through the ridiculous business of dunking it in the lukewarm piss waiting for the slightest change of colour to occur. And at my age, I haven't got the time.

So anyway, to Switzerland. I flew into Basel airport which borders France and Germany as well, and the first notable thing were the bicycles everywhere. Outside the station there was probably a few hundred, I thought this was a great thing to see. None of this 'we can't have bicycle lanes because we don't have the space' nonsense you get in New Zealand and the UK. Switzerland is also small and most of it is covered in Alps but they still found space to put bike lanes in.
I stayed in the YMCA because it was cheap and near the station, and got the train to Lauterbrunnan the next day.

This map shows the route. Lauterbrunnen> Wengen> Grindlewald> Meiringen

More about tea, in the first village I stayed at Wengen I had a lovely little room with a kettle, cup and spoon and some sweetener but no tea or coffee, which was a good start but it would have been even better to have a couple of sachets of tea and coffee to really complete it. In Grindlewald I stayed at a YHA which was in some nice old building which reminded me of a dream I had once, there was a coffee machine but they charge 3CHF for one, during breakfast time the coffee from the machine was free, which was just as well because it was disgusting. Meiringen was the most expensive place I stayed had no kettle at all in the room, nor did it have any pictures, or accessible plugs, or wifi or much security it was turn out. They did have reasonable coffee available at breakfast time. You can of course go to a café and buy a coffee but that will cost about 4.50 CHF which is about 3 pounds or 6NZD, which is a bit much for a hot drink.

Cycling in Jersey

Jersey - famous for Bergerac, milk and cream, royal potatoes and for being a tax haven. Income tax is actually a flat 20% introduced during the German occupation during WW1 and GST was only introduced in 2008 at 3% rising to 5% in 2011. The economy is based on financial services at 40% and only 9% for hotels, restaurants and bars which at first glance look like the dominant industry.

It's a nice place with a good network of cycle lanes, lots of nice sandy beaches and great food. We booked very last minute and stayed at Au Caprice Guest house opposite Saint Aubin's bay only 10 min walk from Saint Aubin village. We mostly cycled around, walked around and ate food. We did visit a castle in Gorey called Mont Orgueil, one of the best examples of medieval castles in Europe full of oubliettes and stone staircases, there's even proper dungeons.

Notes:
The ey at the end denotes an Island
Bergerac ran from 1981 to 1991

Tenby, Wales

Tenby is a place on a postcard and behind the postcard lie little cobbled streets packed with tea shops, beach equipment outlets and tourists, surrounding the postcard is a medieval stone wall and rolling countryside. You can spend the days watching the expansive tide ebb and flow in and completely out of the marina and past the rock on the beach until it's an island isolated by sand, you can walk around the little town buying beach equipment and listening to London accents, you can also go for a walk along the coast to the next town of Saundersfoot and walk back along the beach, until you can't walk back along the beach anymore, at this point you will wonder if the tide is coming in or going out and where the track is back to high ground, just when you think you can't go any further a slab of rock with a rope on it will enable you to haul yourself back onto the track again, and once back on the track you will notice a sign you past on the way out which has a man falling off a cliff in the direction you just came from, thus a nice day can be spent not quite in Tenby. Most people would just go to the beach, and that's nice too.
The Welsh word for Tenby means little town of the fishes.

Coming Home

A friend once said about returning home "I've been out on the high seas for 12
years now, it's time to come home." It's time to come home.