Aotearoa

Christchurch turned out to be pretty cool! I took a little town tour on one of the old tourist trams, and learned alot, from the incredibly witty driver, who was something straight out of Brett and Jermaine's fantasy! The hostel was pretty cool too, tons and tons of travellers, and good company even for the lonely souls... mwahahaha...
Since leaving Christchurch, I've been hanging out in Wellington, with my old school friend Nikola, and her boyfriend Kev, who have been very hospitable and let me crash their spare room...The trip over from the south island was kind of crazy though. I bussed from Christchurch to Picton, which is a small town on the tip of the South island, engulfed by an epic coastal landscape of fiords and sounds. I have to note at this point, all my bus journeys so far have been awesome, purely because I get on fast, and sprawl out on the entire back row, and then just sleep lying down the whole way! Ok, so I got the ferry in Picton, checked in, and got on, happily snapping at all the cool inlets and green fiords as the ship made its way through the tricky maze out of the sounds.


Then came the most surprising transformation, from blue-skyed, calm waters, to crazy-mad huge waves, grey skies, some sideways rain, and wind that blew my hat clean off (luckily it blew into a man who rescued it)... He proceeded to tell me a little bit about the crossing, and how it was incredibly dangerous, as it was one of the focal points where the Pacific currents were channeled into such a small passage, creating incredibly strong drift currents, and therefore turbulent voyages.

Anyway, amidst people throwing up into sea-sickness bags, and screaming children, I sat peacefully, watching stuff on my laptop, and concentrating on not being sick... and it worked. 3 hours later I got to Wellington, jumped off the ferry, and took a drive to Nik's house, and crashed out in bed. Yesterday I went walking around the city and found some really cool little shops, a real kwirky little cultural center, with loads of upmarket shopping, but lots of more down-to-earth, organic-style shops and cafes too. The city is more mettropolitan than I thought it would be, probably after some Flight of the Conchords descriptions of Wellington as being pretty boring and lame...




I also found an awesome little music shop, which dealt almost exclusively in ukuleles, my most recent intrument of choice! so I bought myself a middle-of-the-range uke, to keep myself company throughout my travelling.

Today I went to the Te Papa museum, to find out a little more about New Zealand history, and Maori heritage, and found it really insightful. It turns out the Maori are actually aliens... yeah, who would have thought... hehe, no but its still actually somewhat of a mystery as to where the Maori originally came from. Nonetheless, they are an interesting people, with a very vibrant history, and really cool pagan mythology!
This is Papo-naho, the god of really bad face-liftsThis is a picture of Nikola's dining room, she's very traditional...
I also thought this poster was really cool, of an airline in the fifties who dealt solely in pacific island tourism...


Tonight is pub night, so I'm going to head out and meet my hosts for a few drinks... but I'll be sure to post again soon, so keep checking this space. Lots of love to everyone in the meantime...



The Mister Jesus x