Christchurch surrounds

So the next day it's off exploring again. I've got myself a NZ sim with voice and data, so I can continue to keep in touch with operations back in Australia. Vodafone was the go. Walked in and 5min later I'm ready to go with a prepaid SIM for $35 which gave something like $25 credit, and 10MB/day of data costing $1/day.

Tracey at Charlie B's suggested catching a bus out towards the coast and go and check out Lyttleton and Sumner. With a short walk into town, I found a bus leaving out to Sumner. About 20 minutes later and noticing again how friendly the locals are (everybody shouts out thanks to the bus driver as they get off), I arrive at the seaside town of Sumner. A tiny place that has a main road a few hundred meters long with a nice beach and mountains surrounding. Naturally, it was no problem locating the accomodation there, and so booked in here which of course was the place I'd found in the Lonely Planet guide - Marine Bar and Backpackers.

And so off to adventure around the place. Caught a bus on the same $2.80 going back towards Christchurch for a few minutes to get over towards Lyttleton. No bus actually going there, but would be a bit less to walk. After a few kilometers, I was at the Gondola which goes to the top of the mount there. I didn't quite know where that went exactly, all I could see that it went up quite a steep mountain. The road towards Lyttleton is only via a tunnel, and pedestrians are not allowed, so I assumed the gondola or climbing over the mountain was the way there. So it was, but not really directly. After spending about an hour climbing to the top, the other side showed a view to Lyttleton, but no obvious way of getting down.

The gondola was more about a tourist view of Christchurch in the distance and a restaurant. I located some tracks that go around the crater borderlining Lyttleton below, and several hours later after an unexpected and very nice hike I find my way down to the town.

By this time it was getting dark. I met some other backpackers at the bus stop there that had found themselves there by accident (caught the wrong bus). The options were to catch another bus back in the general direction (back through the tunnel) and walk back, or walk the coast road back to Sumner (7km). I started walking for a few kilometers, and then decided I needed an express route back, so I put out my thumb, and within seconds the first car stopped. I jumped in and Elissa said she was on her way to Sumner to work. It turns out she works at the Marine Bar & Backpackers and is just going there to socialise. Perfect!

Customary Christchurch

After doing a little a bit of extra exploring around the Brisbane area and even over the border to Byron Bay, I tracked back to the Gold Coast to grab a discount flight over to NZ. Seeing as the flight went to Christchurch that seemed as good a spot as any other.
On arrival at Christchurch, there was the obligatory customs walkthrough, where I discovered that I had ticked all the boxes in the eyes of customs for the VIP search treatment. I was the one in the queue that you didn't want to be behind.

Although I'd done my research on traveling to NZ, it seems there are a certain bunch of things that warrant some extra scrutiny that aren't really a part of passing this gate quickly. It seems if you travel;

• with carry-on luggage only
• the last town you visit has a reputation for drugs,
• you purchased your ticket 2 days prior
• you have no specific place to stay
• you've got no date of departure and (visa's etc are not required for Australian passport holders)
• you're just checking out the place...

... out come the rubber gloves and a full interogation of just who are you and what are you doing here.

Anyway, they were all very nice about it, so off to locate a place to stay as it's midnite on Saturday, and my only research so far was to locate 2-3 backpackers that have 24hr checkin. I decided to go the lazy way, and get a shuttle bus, where upon the driver asked where I was going. It turned out to be a good question. I was quite happy with being dropped off in the city area, but apparently there was some big music gig happening in Christchurch and backpacker accomodation was unusually low on this night. Not to worry, went back and made a few free phone calls, and found one that was happy to lay out a mattresss by the bar at Cokers for $20 (which was one that wasn't on my list).

Got into town shortly thereafter for $20, after getting some good info from some locals returning home on the shuttle bus to a place in Sumner, which turned out to be the place I was on my way to if I wasn't arriving in NZ at midnite. Lonely Planet (thanks to Lennie for giving me her copy) had it down as being "author's choice" of places to stay nearby Christchurch, but more on that later.

Having arrived in a new country first mission was to get some the communications systems set up and figure out what was a good way of scoping out these islands. Being the weekend, that had to wait, but in the meantime checking out the streets of Christchurch was pleasant enough, and the weather was perfect, so was great for checking the place out on foot. A very pretty place and everyone was so friendly.

I stayed a night at Charlie B's in town the next night, where the friendly staff there showed my all the usual options for getting around NZ. They showed me the "Magic Bus" option which was going for a steal until the next day, so I forked out my $569 for this magical mystery bus which involved paying for the north island circuit and getting the south island for $1. This is one of those buses that runs around most of the major arteries and you can get off and on it anytime over a 12mth period.