Skipping town

View from partway up Castle Rock, photo creds=Timo

 Hello friends! 

(As always, photos don't correlate with text. Only captions. Please stay focused :))

Near Castle Rock somewhere... photo by Timo

I'm quite shocked that it's been more than two weeks since I blogged last. While I didn't make any formal commitment to blog every week, that was the goal I made for myself, so that's a bit disappointing. But I'll work on maintaining it for the future I suppose and stop whinging long enough to actually blog about what I've been up to over the past week.

Halswell Quarry, photo cred to Timo

Which was running away to Christchurch for the weekend! It's an extraordinarily short flight—around forty five minutes. Just long enough to get in the air, be allowed to turn on electronic devices, and then be instructed to turn them back off. For someone like me, familiar with 12 and 16 hour flights, this was quite laughable.

The wind at the top of Castle Rock was seriously intense.

I flew to Christchurch on Jet Star, which is New Zealand's budget airline. No drinks, no movies (or five minute music video), but for the hatred that many kiwis display towards it because of its unreliability and lack of caring for the passengers, it was fine with me. The fact that the flight was less than 1/3 full however, that was the cause of a bit of concern. Nevertheless, the flight was fine, and I had a lovely chat with a middle aged kiwi who'd never been to Christchurch and was deathly afraid of flying by herself.

View of the country from walking up to Halswell Quarry

I flew home on Air New Zealand, New Zealand's slightly classier airline. There was an adorable and entertaining animated instructional video at the beginning of the flight, and we got water and snacks and mints. So exciting! The flight was full to capacity, and full of well dressed business people who were much more interested in highlighting than talking to me.

Someone should tell them that studies show that highlighting doesn't actually help you retain the information that you're reading.

View towards the ocean from Castle Rock

The one real meal every day for me :]] Note the bakery sign
as if it were a street sign. That's why I love NZ.

Regardless, I didn't spend that much time in downtown Christchurch this time. I spent heaps of money on buses though. Welly is nice because it's so compact that I can walk anywhere I want to get to. Christchurch is really spread out, so that's impossible. 

Facing Halswell Quarry, epic photo by Timo

Plus I was staying in Lincoln, which is a teeny town ten or twelve kilometers outside of Christchurch. It's a tiny little town, and a tiny little farm school. Not much to say about that town, other than it's cute and has amazing pie. It also has an art gallery that's the size of my flat's living room, and exactly one bar.

I had a thing about barbed wire that day. Halswell Quarry.

We did lots of hiking though. The first day I was there we went to the beach. Basically, I made a beeline. It was called Sumner beach and I didn't take any pictures there because my camera was buried in my bag. There wasn't heaps of beach though, because most of it was covered in rocks.

Me at Halswell Quarry, photo by Timo

Gorgeous flowers and view from Halswell Quarry

We also went to a place called Castle Rock. We hiked to the top of this hill, and it was really rocky at the top. Had really beautiful views of Christchurch and the ocean though. Technically it's closed off because of the earthquake, but we ran into heaps of locals there (and not just other crazy teens), so I didn't worry about it. The wind was sick at the top; really intense. And I'm from the windy city! You'd think I'd be used to it.

It's spring here. There were these flowers EVERYWHERE. It was beautiful.

Totes presh little lamb!

We hiked up and around an old quarry called Halswell Quarry. It was really cool, and there was barbed wire everywhere. I guess they really didn't want us going anywhere and falling down and dying. So everyone can take heart that I didn't fall down and die because they had barbed wire to stop me! ...little joke.

Birdlings Flat. "Black sand" beach? It was beautiful though.

We also went to place called Birdlings Flat. I have no clue why on earth it's called that, but it was a beach, covered in rocks. I guess they call it “black sand” but really it isn't sand... it's just rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. I kept my shoes on. It was gorgeous though. Beautiful weather, and only 45 minutes or so outside of Christchurch.

Beautiful view of my cute feet, and how big the rocks were. So many pretty beaches here...

And we went to one more beach too. What can I say? It's magnetic really. It was pouring down rain, but we went anyway. They have a pier there. A really strong concrete one though. The ones I've been on are usually wooden... and in North Carolina... but this one was cool. There were guys surfing even though it was cold and raining and the waves didn't look all that exciting. The beach was called New Brighton, and I wish it had been slightly warmer, though I didn't mind the rain. Overall, it was a pretty great trip, and I was sad to get back to Welly and have to face all of the homework. (Which I have to do as soon as I post this. While it's nice procrastinating, I really do have to do it, but I felt so bad for not posting, so there it is...)

Cold and wet, but still getting out and doing things! Always. Photo by Timo

Anyway! Great weekend, a few beaches and some fun hiking. Lots of cute small town pie. Pie rant! I had... chili con carne, which is basically a fancy way of saying “chili,” chicken, asparagus and cream cheese, and chicken, cranberry and brie. Also venison, which I realized I don't really like. Not a fan, so Bambi—you're safe. From me at least.

Lovely beach, lovely water, lovely weather... New Brighton Beach

Thanks for reading. If you haven't gotten a postcard and you're interested, email me, or comment. But I think I'm sending them to lots of you... so love! I miss you. I miss home. But this is an amazing place, so I'm trying to put that aside.

Pretty lights turned on while we were walking out to the end of the pier. Cool, no?

One last image from Christchurch. Wish I could say it's changed heaps since I was there last, but I think probably there were just as many cranes as last time. And the fact that they'd planted heaps of flowers was the only difference I noticed. It was pretty, but... is that an effective use of their time and resources and money? I don't know. But... it's pretty anyways. We only walked around one evening when we were waiting for the bus to go back to Lincoln.

Happily digging into some fabulous pie... (photo credit to Timo)

I'll leave you now with one of my favorite photos of me from the trip. There were so many pretty purple flowers there. And everywhere. And as we all know, I have a thing for purple. So of course, I went nuts. Yay flowers in my favorite color everywhere :]]]

Photo by Timo! Pretty pretty blurred out face by me! :3

Thanks for reading. You're cool.

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