Wizards and Walks
Christchurch, 19th November 2001.
The next day, we hurried down to check out our free breakfast. The
rush was hardly necessary, the small individually wrapped bags of
budget cereal were not worth getting excited about. After grabbing
some real breakfast, we went off on our own individual stints again.
Nat managed to convince me to check out the free art museum. Up to
then, I'd been an Art Museum virgin as I'd always writhe them off as
being...well...arty farty. But after checking our some of the art on
display, I found that I actually quite enjoyed it! The skill
required for some of the work is absolutely amazing! It's really put
in perspective when you realise that I have trouble drawing
stick-men, never mind painting huge, detailed biblical scenes! The
paintings, montages & even the bull made of corned beef cans were
all really interesting!
 We
met up for lunch in the main market square. As we stood talking, we
noticed that the famous 'Wizard' was starting one of his famous
talks. This guy gives highly interesting talks, about anything &
everything including philosophy, religion, politics & life in
general, while dressed as an old style wizard. He does this in the
centre of Christchurch every weekday in the summer. He's really
famous because he's endorsed by the city council and he's mentioned
in just about every guide book. He also drives a famous VW Beetle
made of 2 front ends stuck together!
We joined the small crowd that was gathered around him and listened
intently. Unfortunately, another speaker, not famous or wanted,
turned up and stood nearby with a megaphone. He then proceeded to
spurt off muffled words about redemption, damnation and other such
subjects. No one was listening to him, not that you make out his
words anyway, and he just became an annoying drone in the
background. The Wizard just ignored him and continued discussing
life, the universe and everything in a very eloquent and articulate
manner.
 After
listening for a while, then just getting too irritated by the
'extra' speaker, we decided to head off elsewhere. Doing a bit of
scenic walking and getting some good views of Christchurch and the
local area seemed like a good idea.. The nearby Mount Cavendish
sounded like an ideal place to visit. Now, according to the
guidebook, there's a Gondola that takes runs from the base to the
summit of Mount Cavendish. It also said that there was a free
shuttle bus and a cheap bus to the Gondola base station. Of course,
free is the one word that is better than cheap to the ears of a
backpacker, so we hunted around for this shuttle bus. After asking
half a dozen bus drivers we had no success. Nat even got a bus,
asked the driver, who waved his hand nonchalantly, then closed the
door and drove off with her! Luckily the next stop was very close,
so she just jumped off and ran back. In the end we learned that the
free bus had been stopped, but a new one costing NZ$10 was in
service. Hmm. As the bus only cost NZ$3 for a return, we decided to
take the bus.
We rode the Gondola to the top and had a wander around to take in
the great views of New Zealand. There was a hugely hyped up museum
that turned out to be a small room with some random nick-knacks in.
After we'd taken all the photos we needed, we decided it would be
fun to hike back down the mountain instead of taking the Gondola. So
we hoisted our bags on, rolled up our sleeves, and set off merrily.
 The
walk did turn out to be great fun, reminding us of our old Duke of
Edinburgh Award Expeditions. We hiked through every type of terrain
(almost): forest, rocks, grassy plains, sunny, shade and more. The
sun beat heavily down on us, so we took regular breathers. The views
were quite amazing and the walk was fairly easy going, however, we
didn't account for the heat properly. Only two of us had water, and
we each had only half a bottle. Very quickly, were down to extreme
rationing and it wasn't too much longer before it was all gone.
Luckily, after a couple of hours of walking with no sign of life, we
eventually reached the bottom and found life.
 The
town looked very different to anything we'd ever seen, and some
quick deduction showed that it was the village of
Lyttleton, a small town on the opposite side of Mount Cavendish.
Whoops! We'd come down the wrong side! Never mind, the guide book
turned out to be helpful. After grabbing some much needed water, we
found a bus stop for buses that should take us straight back to
Christchurch. Thankfully, the next bus did indeed go to
Christchurch, and even better we found that our tickets from earlier
covered us for the return journey!
When we arrived back in Christchurch, we hopped onto one of the free
yellow taxi buses, and wandered back to our hostel. It had been a
long day with some good exercise, so we had a quiet evening just
hanging around in the hostel.
However, before we went to bed, we decided that we were going to use
the Kiwi
Experience to travel around New Zealand. This is a national
coach company that specialises in providing bus coverage of New
Zealand for backpackers. Basically, you pay them for a pass, the
price of which depends on how many places you want to visit in the
country. You then have up to a few months to travel around the
country on the route set by your pass but taking each leg
separately. e.g. One day you'll do Christchurch to Kaikoura, then a
few days later you can do Kaikoura to Nelson, then a few days later
you move on again. All you have to do is phone and book a day or two
ahead. We bought a pass called 'The Kea' a NZ$400 route that covered
a good sized chunk of the country without being too expensive.
Click here to see our route.
So, a total of NZ$1600 cheaper, we head back to our rooms and the
hours trickled away until we fell asleep...
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