It is almost 9am here, and I am yawning over my coffee and the keys trying to wake up. We really have no choice in waking up early around here. One, we spend a lot of time outside in the fresh air, which has us passing out early, but aside from that the road outside apparently is a busy one during work hours. I wouldn't have thought a beach road so far from the central city would be so busy or that such a rather quiet culture would have such noisy cars but it is and they do. So while we can enjoy the lovely sounds of the surf much of the time, mornings are filled with the rumble and zoom of the Christchurch populace going about their business day. Greg is so not impressed and is actively hunting for a louder fan to drown out the sound.
The weather hasn't been quite as expected either. We have this rather lousy luck with weather when we travel. In the Caribbean, it rained, in Florida it rained, in DC it rained, San Francisco, yes you guessed it, rain. Apparently they are having an off season this year down here, El Nino effects, so the weather isn't as warm and sunny as expected and even the locals are unimpressed. So we try and take advantage of the good days as they come and try not to let the overcast and drizzle slow us down too much. Aside from those few things all is good though.
We had planned on venturing out to Orana Wildlife Park yesterday, which according to their website has a shuttle that departs from Cathedral Square in the morning. So we all got up early, no challenge there, and hopped the metro downtown. Of course, its dreary out, but suppose to burn off by early afternoon, so we decide to go anyways. Imagine our surprise when we get there to find out that the cost of the shuttle to get there was more then the actual admission fee to the park itself. Ridiculous! Now I do really want to go to this park. I have had the worst luck with attempting to visit zoos and the like on all our trips. But it just wasn't worth it to pay so much on such a wet, gray day. So we wandered around the square and found something else to do. First stop, the visitor center where we picked up scads of pamphlets and fliers for things to see and do locally and all over the South Island. Then it was off to the Southern Encounter Aquarium & Kiwi House. We definitely enjoyed viewing the marine life. Celia's favorite was the octopus and we spent much time watching it artfully glide across the tank with it's many suction cupped arms. I loved the sting ray, watching it glide gracefully through the water is amazing and definitely inspirational for drawing. Greg liked the sharks, but seemed to enjoy taking in all the marine life in general. We didn't get to see the Kiwi birds though because the female has just laid an egg, so she was chilling and the male was baby sitting. Unfortunately it was pretty dim in there, so we couldn't really take any pictures.
After the aquarium we wandered around the square a while and decided to check out Christchurch Cathedral. As one often finds with Catholic churches, it was very beautiful and ornate and best described in pictures.
After walking around all morning we decided to grab some lunch then head back to the beach house. We found a Burger King and decided to see if it tasted like home, or a bit off like so many other things do here. I swear Kiwi's have no taste buds, the food here is so flat. But BK did not fail us, so below is our over priced ($35 NZD) but very tasty BK meal. Cheers! :)
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