Morakai Boulders and Christchurch

Thursday August 27^th consisted of going to classes (Psych, 9:00am; History 11:00am; and Geology, noon; I skipped Maori society) and then packing so we could leave by 4pm. Surprisingly, we actually did leave by about 4pm, which meant that we got to the Morakai Boulders around sunset.

At first, I thought the boulders were lame because it appeared to be just a beach. And then I realized I hadn’t seen the boulders at all. Here they are:

Quite similar to what you would imagine dragon eggs to be, eh?

Here I am frolicking on a boulder:

Now, on to bigger and better things. Christchurch: the Garden City. Unlike the Garden State, Christchurch is aptly named the Garden City because it has 750 public parks, according to our punting guide/punter.

We walked around the city and went to a couple of art museums, which were interesting and fun, and in this museum, a little scary (you know how creepy contemporary art gets).

We found a public market, where I bought some sweet as manuka honey, which is unique to the south island and expensive in the rest of the world. Check it out, its awesome honey.

And finally, we ambled our way to the Botanic Gardens, where as usually, I took a bunch of pictures of trees. Blame cross country for my unwavering penchant for trees.

And then all hell broke loose. Just kidding, we just went for a wee punt (aka gondola ride, Venice-style).

Our punter was actually a British Fashion designer on break from the cutthroat world of fashion. He was supremely entertaining and introduced me to the phrase “legs akimbo” which I’m not positive is a popular saying, but it is fun to say. Try it. The best story he told us is that one time a river eel ate a duckling in front of a punt full of kids. The story included hand gestures.

Also worth noting, are the cool sculptures around ChCh.

And for those of you curious about the pub-crawl… I suppose I can summarize the night by saying I met a lad named Alistair who told me “If you stayed in New Zealand I would have to hunt you down until you fell in love with me,” to which I replied, “I leave Christchurch tomorrow.” For those of you who always ask if I have a boyfriend, now you know why the answer is always no.

Anyway, we got to see some cool bars and meet some random people. Basically the pub-crawl was mostly other tourists like us and not locals. Accept Alistair. Apparently he regulars the pub crawl…

So, I guess that’s all that is going to make it to the blog. Up next: The Wine Tour.