As soon as we got to Judith's house, our HIT home in Christchurch, we felt lucky. The house was covered with warm wood inside, and Judith was so welcoming that we could just feel at home.
Judith is a lovely lady! She is a semi-retired Physics and Science teacher and was very surprised by our excited reaction. "I usually get a different reaction when people hear Physics…" she said. We can definitely relate to that. We ate dinner together and talked a little about science and a little about religion.
Judith rents a room to two Malaysian girls. Both of them study design in the Christchurch University. Her house was not damaged during the earthquake, but she told us that the girls were very frightened. Who could blame them? When they asked "what do we do now?" after the ground stopped shaking, she said: "Well, I'm going to make myself a cup of tea and go back to sleep".
Maybe the reason why Judith's house was not harmed at all is because Mother Earth (Papatuanuku) must like her a lot. This is definitely the most ecological house we've visited. All the garbage is separated and the food scraps are turned into compost in the back yard. The hard (or smelly) organic waste is grounded in the sink and goes straight to the sewage. The compost is used for the garden, where Judith grows some fruits and vegetables.
On the second day we went to tour the city. It was Sunday, so we headed to the Sunday market near the arts center. Christchurch city center is alive and fun to hang out in so we walked a little on the streets and visited the beautiful Botanical Gardens before we got to the food market. The market was fun, with a lot of overpriced food stalls from all round the world. Oren chose Greek Suvlaki and Lilya tried a Bavarian style sausage.
The food market is located at the yard of the Arts Center, which is, unlike what you'd expect from the name, a craft market rather than a museum. In it you can find a lot of green stone Maori art which is like a national symbol of NZ. There was also a book store full with picture books of NZ. We love to look at books and postcards in countries we visit and see what we already saw (and pictured) and get some inspiration for our photographs, but this visit upset us. As much as we enjoyed our visit in NZ until then, we couldn't help but feeling that we haven't seen any of the real beautiful New Zealand that we hoped to see, but that was about to change.
The Christchurch University was close by and we wanted to visit the room where the famous Physicist Ernest Rutherford worked. Unfortunately the place was closed because of the earthquake so we had to settle for looking at the sign with Rutherford's picture. We came back late in the afternoon to Judith's home and cooked dinner for 5.
Our next destination was Dunedin, a 4 hour drive south of Christchurch and the major problem seemed to be getting out of the city. Eventually, this was easier than we expected. While we were walking down the street a woman stopped and asked us where do we need to go. Apparently, she saw us walking on the street while she was driving in the opposite direction, and decided she wants to help some poor hitchhikers and made a U-turn. She brought us outside the city.
The next ride was with a girl who does her B.Sc. in Biology. We had a fascinating talk about conservation, and especially about what DOC (Department of Conservation of NZ) does wrong. The next ride was a real good one. The guy who picked us up was living in Dunedin, and just got back from a "Training Camp" where he learned how to sell cookies. He even got a cookies shirt which he should wear when he goes to sell the cookies. The job is to go to big offices which want to give their employees something nice for Christmas, and convince them that cookies is that nice thing they are looking for. This work is quite rewarding, so he told us, and it will pay part of his next year tuition in medicine school.
This nice guy even made a detour so we can see great views of Otago Peninsula, before he brought us into the city center and dropped us right at our hostel. Just another great day on the roads of NZ…
Dunedin is famous in being a lively students city centered around its university. However, lively student life cannot exist without students, and since the summer vacation has just started, the city center was completely dead. We had to struggle hard to find a single pub that will serve us with a (heaven forbid) WARM beer. They claimed that since it was a British beer, that's the way it should be served, but the taste clearly showed it was nonsense.
Luckily, that wasn't the reason we came to Dunedin. The Otago peninsula, where Dunedin sits, is one of the best places to see wildlife in NZ. Large colonies of sea animals made their home there. Among them are fur seals, sea lions, yellow eyed penguins (the second rarest specie in the world), and royal albatrosses. We booked a half day tour in the peninsula which started in the afternoon on the next day, so we spent the morning walking from our hostel to the university which is the pumping heart of the city.
The pumping heart was almost in a state of cardiac arrest. There were students there, but only those who had some exams to complete, and this is always the most depressing kind of students. We looked for the physics department, and asked the secretary what kind of research is going on in the university. She was very amused by the two Israelis with the strange questions, but nevertheless gave us the faculty book, with the (very short) list of groups and fields, which also included cuts from the newspapers of every report that mentioned someone in the faculty. The most interesting group even had a Israeli who's doing his post doctorate. But he wasn't on campus that day, and so was his professor, so we said goodbye and returned to the hostel.
The animal tour took us first to see the albatross colony. The albatrosses were already nesting, so we couldn’t enter close to the actual colony, but we could stand on the balcony and watch the young and single albatrosses making their spectacular glide towards the colony. There were also lots of seagulls that their sole purpose was to be a distraction, cormorants, and wild geese, but when a single albatross came it diminished everything else in the sky. The view of the albatross' glide was truly spectacular. Apparently, they don't have to waist energy on flying. They can lock their wings and glide. They fly about 300km every day, with occasional flights of over 1000km in a day. Albatross even sleep while flying, they just turn off half of their brains for that.
Next on our watch list were the sea lions. We came down a hill to the beach where 3 of them were just sleeping and enjoying last hour of sunlight before they should wake up and go back to the sea to hunt. Watching them laying there immediately explains why these majestic creatures were almost extinct in NZ. Even a blind and cripple man can hunt them when they take a nap on the beach.
We passed near the sea lions, trying not to wake them, when another sea lion came out from the sea. He approached the ones on the beach and woke them up. They all started playing and chasing one another, while we were amazed by our great luck and took as many picture as we could. One of them even chased another group of tourists that stood too close, to the amusement of our group, who was out of danger.
We continued along the beach and got to the hideout, where we could see the yellow eyed penguins coming up from the sea to their nests. We watched them from a hideout since they are really shy and they really like their privacy. Their nests are high on the hill and the penguins have to climb quite a lot to get there. The people who own the land planted native bush, that were long extinct from the region, so the penguins will have a place to nest, and made special trail to help them reach the nests. The nesting season was in its peak and the eggs were hatching every day. We saw inside the hideout two cameras that were hidden near the nests and saw one of the parents incubating the egg which was already cracked. When we climbed up we saw the fitter penguins climb up the hill, pass a group of sheep (which are an introduced specie in NZ) and continue to their nests. This was the best "old and new" picture of NZ you can ask for.
It was getting dark, but we didn't give up the walk to the seal colony. Tens of fur seals were lying on the rocky seashore. It's good they are so fat – they probably didn't even feel the sharp rocks! The young ones were playing and occasionally harassing a big male, only to discover that these guys doesn't like to be disturbed.
We came back to Dunedin late in the night, and went straight to bed. On the next day we hitched west in the direction of Te-Anau.
TIP 1: A lovely backpackers hostel - Manor house backpackers. An old house surrounded by a very nice garden. The big shared kitchen is a good place to meet new friends and the stuff is really helpful and friendly. You can book any attraction you want through them, don't worry, they don't charge extra for booking (we checked).
Tip 2: We did our animal watching with Elm Tours, and we can definitely recommend them. Note that in order to see an albatross gliding down you should be lucky, so don't waste too much time at the visitor center in the albatross colony. Just head to the viewing balcony.
Judith is a lovely lady! She is a semi-retired Physics and Science teacher and was very surprised by our excited reaction. "I usually get a different reaction when people hear Physics…" she said. We can definitely relate to that. We ate dinner together and talked a little about science and a little about religion.
Judith rents a room to two Malaysian girls. Both of them study design in the Christchurch University. Her house was not damaged during the earthquake, but she told us that the girls were very frightened. Who could blame them? When they asked "what do we do now?" after the ground stopped shaking, she said: "Well, I'm going to make myself a cup of tea and go back to sleep".
Maybe the reason why Judith's house was not harmed at all is because Mother Earth (Papatuanuku) must like her a lot. This is definitely the most ecological house we've visited. All the garbage is separated and the food scraps are turned into compost in the back yard. The hard (or smelly) organic waste is grounded in the sink and goes straight to the sewage. The compost is used for the garden, where Judith grows some fruits and vegetables.
On the second day we went to tour the city. It was Sunday, so we headed to the Sunday market near the arts center. Christchurch city center is alive and fun to hang out in so we walked a little on the streets and visited the beautiful Botanical Gardens before we got to the food market. The market was fun, with a lot of overpriced food stalls from all round the world. Oren chose Greek Suvlaki and Lilya tried a Bavarian style sausage.
The food market is located at the yard of the Arts Center, which is, unlike what you'd expect from the name, a craft market rather than a museum. In it you can find a lot of green stone Maori art which is like a national symbol of NZ. There was also a book store full with picture books of NZ. We love to look at books and postcards in countries we visit and see what we already saw (and pictured) and get some inspiration for our photographs, but this visit upset us. As much as we enjoyed our visit in NZ until then, we couldn't help but feeling that we haven't seen any of the real beautiful New Zealand that we hoped to see, but that was about to change.
The Christchurch University was close by and we wanted to visit the room where the famous Physicist Ernest Rutherford worked. Unfortunately the place was closed because of the earthquake so we had to settle for looking at the sign with Rutherford's picture. We came back late in the afternoon to Judith's home and cooked dinner for 5.
Our next destination was Dunedin, a 4 hour drive south of Christchurch and the major problem seemed to be getting out of the city. Eventually, this was easier than we expected. While we were walking down the street a woman stopped and asked us where do we need to go. Apparently, she saw us walking on the street while she was driving in the opposite direction, and decided she wants to help some poor hitchhikers and made a U-turn. She brought us outside the city.
The next ride was with a girl who does her B.Sc. in Biology. We had a fascinating talk about conservation, and especially about what DOC (Department of Conservation of NZ) does wrong. The next ride was a real good one. The guy who picked us up was living in Dunedin, and just got back from a "Training Camp" where he learned how to sell cookies. He even got a cookies shirt which he should wear when he goes to sell the cookies. The job is to go to big offices which want to give their employees something nice for Christmas, and convince them that cookies is that nice thing they are looking for. This work is quite rewarding, so he told us, and it will pay part of his next year tuition in medicine school.
This nice guy even made a detour so we can see great views of Otago Peninsula, before he brought us into the city center and dropped us right at our hostel. Just another great day on the roads of NZ…
Dunedin is famous in being a lively students city centered around its university. However, lively student life cannot exist without students, and since the summer vacation has just started, the city center was completely dead. We had to struggle hard to find a single pub that will serve us with a (heaven forbid) WARM beer. They claimed that since it was a British beer, that's the way it should be served, but the taste clearly showed it was nonsense.
Luckily, that wasn't the reason we came to Dunedin. The Otago peninsula, where Dunedin sits, is one of the best places to see wildlife in NZ. Large colonies of sea animals made their home there. Among them are fur seals, sea lions, yellow eyed penguins (the second rarest specie in the world), and royal albatrosses. We booked a half day tour in the peninsula which started in the afternoon on the next day, so we spent the morning walking from our hostel to the university which is the pumping heart of the city.
The pumping heart was almost in a state of cardiac arrest. There were students there, but only those who had some exams to complete, and this is always the most depressing kind of students. We looked for the physics department, and asked the secretary what kind of research is going on in the university. She was very amused by the two Israelis with the strange questions, but nevertheless gave us the faculty book, with the (very short) list of groups and fields, which also included cuts from the newspapers of every report that mentioned someone in the faculty. The most interesting group even had a Israeli who's doing his post doctorate. But he wasn't on campus that day, and so was his professor, so we said goodbye and returned to the hostel.
The animal tour took us first to see the albatross colony. The albatrosses were already nesting, so we couldn’t enter close to the actual colony, but we could stand on the balcony and watch the young and single albatrosses making their spectacular glide towards the colony. There were also lots of seagulls that their sole purpose was to be a distraction, cormorants, and wild geese, but when a single albatross came it diminished everything else in the sky. The view of the albatross' glide was truly spectacular. Apparently, they don't have to waist energy on flying. They can lock their wings and glide. They fly about 300km every day, with occasional flights of over 1000km in a day. Albatross even sleep while flying, they just turn off half of their brains for that.
Next on our watch list were the sea lions. We came down a hill to the beach where 3 of them were just sleeping and enjoying last hour of sunlight before they should wake up and go back to the sea to hunt. Watching them laying there immediately explains why these majestic creatures were almost extinct in NZ. Even a blind and cripple man can hunt them when they take a nap on the beach.
We passed near the sea lions, trying not to wake them, when another sea lion came out from the sea. He approached the ones on the beach and woke them up. They all started playing and chasing one another, while we were amazed by our great luck and took as many picture as we could. One of them even chased another group of tourists that stood too close, to the amusement of our group, who was out of danger.
We continued along the beach and got to the hideout, where we could see the yellow eyed penguins coming up from the sea to their nests. We watched them from a hideout since they are really shy and they really like their privacy. Their nests are high on the hill and the penguins have to climb quite a lot to get there. The people who own the land planted native bush, that were long extinct from the region, so the penguins will have a place to nest, and made special trail to help them reach the nests. The nesting season was in its peak and the eggs were hatching every day. We saw inside the hideout two cameras that were hidden near the nests and saw one of the parents incubating the egg which was already cracked. When we climbed up we saw the fitter penguins climb up the hill, pass a group of sheep (which are an introduced specie in NZ) and continue to their nests. This was the best "old and new" picture of NZ you can ask for.
It was getting dark, but we didn't give up the walk to the seal colony. Tens of fur seals were lying on the rocky seashore. It's good they are so fat – they probably didn't even feel the sharp rocks! The young ones were playing and occasionally harassing a big male, only to discover that these guys doesn't like to be disturbed.
We came back to Dunedin late in the night, and went straight to bed. On the next day we hitched west in the direction of Te-Anau.
Picture Gallery Links:
TIP 1: A lovely backpackers hostel - Manor house backpackers. An old house surrounded by a very nice garden. The big shared kitchen is a good place to meet new friends and the stuff is really helpful and friendly. You can book any attraction you want through them, don't worry, they don't charge extra for booking (we checked).
Tip 2: We did our animal watching with Elm Tours, and we can definitely recommend them. Note that in order to see an albatross gliding down you should be lucky, so don't waste too much time at the visitor center in the albatross colony. Just head to the viewing balcony.
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