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Picking up where I left off from the last blog entry, Charlie and I are still in Queenstown however have been managing to keep ourselves pretty busy with the huge amount that the place has to offer.
I recently took a little trip up to Christchurch to see the All Blacks play France at the AMI Stadium. I headed up on a return Intercity bus in order to save my Kiwi Experience Queenstown to Christchurch pass for our flight on the 30th July. I checked out of Nomads Hostel and headed to the bus stop to begin the 8hr journey to New Zealands 2nd biggest city along the way making stops at Lake Tekapu and Geraldine. On arrival in Christchurch Kurt and I checked into our hostel and decided to stretch our legs after the bus and go for a short wander around Christchurch and grab a bite to eat.
Following the earthquakes of September 2010 and 22nd February 2011 the city was a sight. The main city centre has been closed off for over 2 years now and no one is allowed into it. There are road closures and work going on in an effort to rebuild the city and get things back to some sort of normallity however specialists are saying that it could take between 50 and 100 years for a complete recovery of the quakes.
Kick off for the All Blacks game was at 7.30pm, leaving us with the day to have a look around the city and find a decent place for a few beverages pre game. We decided to head over to the stadium around midday to pick up our tickets. Using google maps on my iPod for directions I typed in AMI stadium and told us it was a 30 minute walk from our hostel. Perfect. After 15 minutes of walking the Stadium came into view. On arrival at the ground we were able to look straight into the playing field only to see that the pitch itself was completely overgrown. Not exactly fit for an international test match kicking off in less than 8 hours. We managed to find a man in a high vis jacket who informed us that the earthquake had caused structural damage to the ground making it unsafe for any events, also cancelling all 7 Rugby World Cup games scheduled there back in July 2011 and that the temporary AMI Stadium was an hours walk from the current ground.
Eventually we made it to the match that evening meeting a group of people who I had spent the previous 3 weeks on the Kiwi bus with which was great. Following a quick drink in a bar before the game we got ourselves into the stadium to see the famous All Blacks Haka and the watch NZ smash the French.
Final Score
New Zealand 30 - 0 France
The next day I headed back to Queenstown on the Intercity bus and spent the next week or so getting up to various things such as the underwater lake viewing point, Frisbee golf, which is awesome fun, a couple of nights out and a trip up the mountain for an incredible view over the town.
The weekend marked the begging of the annual Queenstown Winter Festival. On the Friday night we made it down to the opening show and fireworks of the festival. We also managed to find our way to a bar to watch the Lions just about beat the Aussies on Saturday night after playing the most incredible indoor mini golf during the day due to the lack of good weather.
Monday morning was a very early start. Charlie, Sophie, Ian and I decided to rent ourselves some skis and head on up to The Remarkables to see what New Zealands pistes had to offer. We managed to pick a day of perfect blue skies following the weeks of overcast and rain! We got ourselves onto the first bus up the mountain and luckily managed to watch the sun pop up from behind the mountains making for possibly one of the best sunrises I've ever seen. We spent the day cruising around the slopes and having a great time in the sunshine. Possibly one of the best days of the trip so far and definately a massive highlight!
Thats about it for now. We've got just less than week left in New Zealand before we leave the country and catch a flight over to Thailand and meet up with Ben Doughty, hugely looking forward to that!
Just passed the halfway mark on the trip, it all seems to be going in the blink of an eye!
Hope everyones well back home!
xx
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