Greetings from South Island

Happy New Year from us both!
This is Phileas and Fogg celebrating the New Year in true NZ style with yummy wine and excellent food. Oh and of course we were eating al fresco!!

Anyway 'enough of this frivolity' our readers will be shouting 'give us news, we don't want to see pictures of you enjoying yourselves!!'

Fogg sent our last posting which was from Devonport on the North Island. We have now moved our base to Christchurch on South Island, a quite different place. Much quieter, even less people and mountains! We flew over snow covered peaks and we expect to be playing snowballs before we leave SI.


As you can see I have perfected the art of putting pictures on the blog, well I have found an awesome Internet place called e Blah Blah which has all the technology I need. Unfortunately it is only in CHCH so they may be the last for some time!! This is a picture taken on the Banks Peninsula. It is worth Google Earthing as it is quite awesome, as infact the whole area is. This is the crater of a volcano, one of 2 next to each other. It was found by Captain Cook and named after the great botanist Joseph Banks. Around the harbour are small villages including one called Akaroa. It is a beautiful little town, originally settled by French as well as British and so has a slightly French air. It has some of the best preserved Victorian buildings in the whole of NZ. It is backed by the mountains of the crater and so is very sheltered. We are back there soon to go Hector dolphin and White flipper penguin watching.

We now have a hire car and so we are free to explore. Driving is good as the roads are quiet; however standards of driving in NZ are varied and there are some seriously aggressive drivers just as in UK. Fogg has been doing all the driving as he is a diffident map reader and this has led to some scary moments for Phileas as the roads are very windy in places and the views are spectacular and Fogg wants to look as well as drive!! As we drove to Akaroa we were stopping every few minutes to take in the view and then round the corner was another, equally amazing.

When we first arrived in SI we stayed in a B & B in Sumner a suburb of CHCH. This is the view from the deck of our room and is typical of the views from the house. The sea is the Pacific Ocean, we could hear the water from our bedroom and it lulled us to sleep. All around here there are houses built on the sides of the volcanic hills with spectacular views down over the sea or the city. Getting to these properties is quite exciting and on foot exhausting. The roads are switchbacks and mad cyclists career down them. We are now staying further up the valley in Sumner in the house of an ex-colleagues of Fogg's. It is quite beautiful and looks over a small valley which reminds us very much of Scotland and The Lake District. There are massive birds of prey flying overhead and the light on the hills is everchanging. It is so peaceful and beautiful.

CHCH is a lovely city, very small and unthreatening. There is a very good Art Gallery and an Arts Centre which houses working artists, exhibitions, shops and a range of cafes. A model for any town in UK.

Will now hand over to Fogg. Best wishes to all our readers
Phileas.

The landscape here is awesome. The photos just give an idea. They do not really do it justice. It is just endless beauty.

The Art Gallery in Christchurch is excellent with a fantastic range of very good contemporary and historical paintings and prints. All housed in a very impressive modern glass building. Many of the paintings evoked the Scottish colour painters of the turn of the 19th/ 20th Century. It is very interesting to see works that had also been bought over by boat in the mid 19th Century by the early European settlers.

On the matter of Back Packers. (Largely for Mr'T' and Mrs 'T''s ex students). Unlike our day, it is now a 'doddle.' They (the backpackers) just swan from one venue to another in cars or buses and then crash out in their ready made hostel beds. The only backpacking they do is from the car to their room!!!!!!!!! Then it is a spit from there to the ready made bar where they practice for when they are back in England and at Uni!!!!!!!! I am not envious or anything.

SO STUDENTS. IF YOU GET THE OPPORTUNITY. GO FOR IT.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS AS THEY SAY AWESOME.

This is Fogg (Mr 'T') signing off

xx