Christchurch

This weekend we drove down to Christchurch for the Banff Mountain Film Festival. We had tickets to both nights (Friday and Saturday night), but that still left plenty of time in the day for exploring the city. This was my first visit to Christchurch, though Scott has somehow already visited 3 times during various friend airport pick-ups/drop-offs (remember, only 3 people fit in our van..).

As you most likely are aware, Christchurch has suffered from a number of recent earthquakes, the most destructive one in February 2011. Luckily the aftershocks have died down by now, and it's happy to see how the citizens have returned to their regular lives. Though the city itself is still left with a lot of destruction, including massive damage to the downtown core. 

There's still lots of snow remaining from the storm a few days earlier. I was surprised that Christchurch had a lot of snow still in the city! Our first day there was pretty overcast, but this was perfect because we wanted to see Prometheus! Scott has been excited for this movie for a long time, so we had to take advantage of being in a city with a proper theater and see it. Overall I really enjoyed it, though there were definitely a few plot holes that left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. 

We had a wonderful time visiting Christchurch and definitely made the most of our trip! Full details in the upcoming posts :)

View from Kaikoura of the inland mountains is clear, but why not the coastal ones? 

Pretty view of the mountains off in the distance over the plains.

And one more pic for good luck. 

Good thing we got new tires for the van! We can barely remember how to drive on snow, haha

Dexter remembers this white stuff too!

King of the Castle! 

Saturday was beautiful and sunny, so we started our day with a stroll around the downtown area. As I mentioned, much of downtown is closed but there is a cool area called "Re:START" where they are putting up shops in shipping containers. Really neat! More info here and here.

So much cool architecture in Chistchurch, such a shame that so much has been lost!

We're downtown

Closed area.

Tearing down unstable buildings.

Re:START area is really cool!

Drinking coffee in a shipping container? Sure!

Dexter thought this sculpted plant was real. He was scared and
woofed at at before we showed  him that it was a plant.  How confusing!

Enjoying the new promotion at McDonalds

All my favourite things on a burger! Beetroot, pineapple, tomato, lettuce, cheese...wow. 

Winter comes to New Zealand

Although we are technically in the winter months, it hasn't really felt like winter. Until today! A big storm hit the south island, and brought snow to a lot of the surrounding areas (though not downtown Kaikoura). We only got lots of rain, and also the lovely surprise of a power outage. The power had been flickering on and off all morning, and then finally dropped off for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The worst consequence  of this is that it was COLD (yes even worse than no internet)! Central heating is not really a thing here, and most houses are heated by fireplace. We have been making do with our electric heaters, and hadn't bothered to get any firewood for our fireplace. Boy was that a mistake. Coupled with the lack of proper wall insulation and double glazed windows I think our indoor temperature was around the 8 degree C mark. Also since we have an electric stove we didn't really have any ways of making hot food. Until Scott got out the camping stove to make hamburgers, haha. 

Anyways, eventually the power came back on and all was fine. It was an interesting day though!

Scott gets creative to cook lunch.

Snowfall at a ski field near Christchurch!

A couple days later the weather has improved, but lots of evidence of snowfall on the mountains!

Stunning Scenery and Fun Fetching

After an overcast morning the sun peaked out this afternoon over the mountains. In our ongoing mission to get a perfect pictures of the mountain range, I rushed down to the beach with Dexter and my camera. I'm not sure it was The Perfect Picture, but I think I got some good ones! Also Dexter got to play fetch, so he approved as well. The waves were a bit big today, but luckily he is brave, and only got tossed around in a wave once :) I took a video too.

Some background: For some reason the view of the mountains is always somewhat hazy. I think it's just the strange weather that occurs near mountain and ocean, but there is usually a layer of fog obscuring the view. This is probably also related to why the weather can vary so drastically in this small area depending how far out on the peninsula you are. 

The view from the house as the sky clears up a bit

The sun peaks through

Dexter trying to time his swim so he doesn't get waved in the face

Ahhh that one's too big!

Jump!

Bigger jump!

Dexter goes surfing!

The return trip gets extra frantic when being chased by a wave!

I got it!

Pretty...

It wasn't a rock, it was a Rock Lobster

Kaikoura has a cute little aquarium located on the somewhat deserted new warf. It's housed in a shipping container, with an small outdoor addition that includes a touch tank. Despite its small size, the aquarium has a decent collection of local sea life which has been found by various fishermen. I guess when they find something interesting they just bring it over to the aquarium! Admission is donation only, but we were happy to give generously to support this local project. 

Since the aquarium is so tiny the girl had no problem with Dexter coming in too "as long as he doesn't jump in a tank or something". Luckily there were no issues there :)

Also today I learned that a crayfish is also called a rock lobster! 

Aquarium this way!

Yay it's open! (We have tried to come here before to find it closed...the hours are somewhat random)

Charmingly rustic

The indoor collection

Dexter likes the crayfish!

Ohhhh!

Eep those are some scary looking crabs!

Seahorse!

Baby octopus! He was hiding in a shell, but the girl coaxed him out for us. Neat!

Only humans get to touch Dexter!

A super hairy crab

After the aquarium it was such a nice day that we continued walking around the peninsula. Apparently the aquarium had peaked my appatite for seafood, so we went to our favourite food stand for some crayfish. Mmmm! Scott even tried some too, and didn't completely hate it!

I had wanted to check out the Fyffe House, which was originally built from whale vertebrae. But we discovered that admission was a bit expensive so it didn't seem worth it to go inside. Also I don't think you can actually see the whale bones. 

Beautiful day for a walk though! What a nice way to start off the long weekend. 

I always want to take a picture of this driftwood tree when I pass it. Finally!

Shags

Speaking of crayfish...

Lucky Dexter got some fish scraps from the woman at the crayfish place! 

Yum yum!

Needs some lemon

Dexter got distracted by the motorboat during our photo pose.

Sometimes we like to trick Dexter into getting splashed by the waves, mwah ha ha

Pretty

Nice day for a walk!

More pretty

Fyffe House

Dexter is bored of waiting and wants to get walking again

More splashing, hehe

Scott looking cool

Huge waves at the beach today!