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Here are some very long exposure shots of our room in Christchurch early in the morning. The curtains were actually quite thick and the room quite dark. We were getting ready to catch a morning bus to Akaroa where we planned to spend the next few days. Here are some pictures of Cathedral Square in Christchurch. The big chess set, the Japanese tourists, the cathedral itself, the Starbucks and the shuttle buses and the birds. It's all there for you to see. When the shuttle bus to take us to Akaroa finally arrived, we went to get aboard, and the driver took about ten minutes to get two parties (four people) onboard the bus. It was at this point I realised we wouldn't be leaving on time. It was quite a mess, with overbookings, booking people onto the bus right then despite an already-full pre-booking of the bus. About twenty minutes into the pain, a woman came along that worked for the Akaroa Shuttle Bus company, and she was quite more efficient and brutal than our bus driver. She took control of the situation and made it suck less. All this was complicated by the little Polish woman who was confused about who was supposed to be where on the bus and was trying to be helpful by moving about from seat to seat and asking the bus driver what should be done every couple of minutes. In the end, we only left about 10 minutes late, and the ASB company needed to commission another bus to take some people to Akaroa, but everyone that needed to go seemed to get sorted, so life progressed with little animosity and a maximum of satisfaction. I guess all 'tour' type buses need to stop at several little shops to try to get the tourists to buy things. This was the first stop for us. A little arts and crafts set of shops in the middle of nowhere with a restroom for those of us with small bladders. I wandered around taking pictures while the rest bought trinkets and trifles for relatives back home. Another thing these tour buses seem to do is stop at scenic spots for photographs. We stopped here for about three minutes and I snapped as many pictures as I could do in those minutes. These pictures, like the mountains of Kaikoura, give me the impression of a painting. I'm quite fond of these colourful and surreal landscapes. I hope you enjoy them, too. Once we arrived in Akaroa, we had a little lunch and waited for a representative of the Onuku Farm Hostel to come pick us up. We only had a half hour, so there wasn't really any time for picture-taking. We hopped into a pickup truck with a super-tall goofy-looking marijuana-smoking dude from Sussex who drove us the ~6 km to the hostel. In the truck with us was a tall German girl whose name quite frankly I've forgotten. We drove up and down hills, over deep-rutted dirt roads, across gravel patches, through some sheep gates, and finally to the hostel. We were shown to our room, and I took pictures of the room. Here are the pictures of our room, which is a hut about 100 metres from the hostel. We also took a couple of pictures of the view from our cabin. Don't worry, you'll see these same views another two or three times in the coming pages. In different weather and at different times of day, I took pictures. Here are some pictures of the common rooms and various multi-person rooms at the main bit of the hostel. The hostel was broken up into various bits: 1. A campground with some small cabins and kitchens and sites for pitching tents. 2. A main bit with kitchens and rooms and common rooms and showers. 3. A tramping cabin area with a couple of extra cabins for guests of the farm hostel. We stayed in the last little bit in a cabin with no electricity or water. Only a candle, some beds, a table, and a chair. You'll see more pictures of that later. Here are the tramper's cabins in the third bit, very close to the cabin we stayed in. Again with the view from our cabin. Again with the interior of our cabin. Fenny gives us a tour of the sheep on the hill at the farm hostel. There were many sheep here. I guess about 2,000 of them. The hill we're on here was quite steep and long. We walked up it to get some better views of the Akaroa harbour. You will get the same views as me, except from the viewpoint of a Nikon digital camera. Deal. Fenny shows you what it's like to be around sheep. Sheep do I guess about four things. Eat. Sleep. Digest. Shit. This the life of a sheep. These are the hills that the sheep eat, sleep, digest, and shit upon. Enjoy the view! In another life, I would've been a gansta rappa. But this isn't another life. I am a tourist. We continue our ascent... Here you can actually see the cabin we were staying in. See the little group of brown buildings on the lower left? The two attached buildings are where trampers stay the night, and the little building to the left of those is a single building with a wall in the middle of it to split it into two units. Another view of our cabin from a bit higher up. In case you're having a hard time locating the buildings with the brown rooves (what is the plural of roof?) -- the hill on the left side of the picture that is split into four pieces is where you want to be looking. The buildings are almost exactly halfway down the picture, and about 30% into the left side. This was the highest point we reached. The little gate you see at the beginning of these pictures is the gate we didn't go through to go higher. Starting back down... Once we reached the bottom of the hill again, we found a shepherd sort of dog that mostly reminded me of Habib (Abby in a former life) the Dog of Utmost Coolness that is presently the friend, pal, and cohort in crime of the Nickster in Oklahoma (or Texas or Kansas or Minnesota or whatever state du jour the guy calls home). This dog, like Habib, liked to play a game where he would look at you in your face, and if you looked back long enough, he'd jump up on you and wrassle you to the ground. Well, except he wasn't big enough to wrassle me to the ground, but that was the intent, anyway. He was a lot of fun to play with, so I played with him... ...and took pictures of him... ...and scratched him under the chin... ...and promised him the camera as food... ...and encouraged him to sit still for Fenny. Actually, Fenny also tried playing the "stare the dog in the face" game and lost. He jumped up on her, she screamed and ran away, and he got excited and tried to eat my camera. That's just the way dogs are, I guess. And our first day at the Onuku Farm Hostel draws slowly to a close... The sun was setting over the hills and the haze was causing rays of sunlight to be visible. We wandered toward our cabin and took pictures of the dusk sky and the mountains and the harbour and the cruise ship that had anchored itself in the harbour. Back in our cabin, ready to retire for the evening. |
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