Where in the World is Saura

Its been a few days since my last post, and there’s quite a bit to catch up on. Alan played in a tennis tournament last weekend, and made it to the quarters in his singles and to the finals with his doubles partner, Adam. They played in the finals against the No. 1 and 2 in New Zealand, and put up a great fight, winning the first set and almost taking down the match in the second, but unfortunately their opponents got a bit of momentum and ended up winning. I was very dissapointed, they played so well, and the guys they played were, well, assholes (sorry, but they were). Anyway, Al and Adam put on a great match.

After a day or so of rest time, we went on a hike going about 4 km out of Christchurch and back, with some views of the distant mountains, and of Lytteltom Bay. The walk is from Sign of the Takahe to Sign of the Kiwi. I believe there is a loop back, but we just followed our tracks back from this point.

We found a nice spot over looking the bay where we plan to go back to for a picnic lunch. We left a tennis ball in a hidden location just to see if its still there on our return. I give it a 60% chance of not being found. Its an easy hike and there are plenty of people hiking, joggging, and walking their dogs along this track. Near the trail head there is a park that overlooks Christchurch and there is a table that points out the moutnains in the distance. I would guess the visibility about Christchurch is about 100 miles, and for a reference, the visibility in western North Carolina is about nine miles. The air is super clean. We could see a fine layer of smog off in the distance, but it was nothing like you’d see in the States.

After we returned from this hike, we went out with a few friends that were in town. It turned out to be a big UNCA reunion. Adam, Paul, and Al all played tennis for UNCA (all from NZ), their friend Lindsay from England (UNCA graduate) came to visit with her boyfriend Steve, from Australia, who she met while he did one semester abroad at UNCA. So we had six people, representing four countries, all who went to the same university in Asheville, NC. This is what we did:

From L to R: Steve, Paul, Lindsay, Adam, Al, and me. Centered is a stack of two beer jugs, an ashtray, and six glasses.

The next day Alan and I went to Akaroa, which it on the Banks Penninsula, about 80 km from Christchurch over the Port Hills. The drive is pretty difficult. Its a one lane highway that curves steeply up through the pass, over to the bay on the opposite side. Here is a nice view from the roadside of the landscape leading down to Akaroa.

The town is very peaceful and touristy. Not much to do other than eat and relax. Akaroa was a French settlement, which was evident in the business names throughout the town: Le Restaurant, Le Hotel or the more correct L’Hotel, Le Mini Golf…. Throughout the town there are memorials to the Great War (you can find these all over New Zealand), large bronze pots used to cook whale, and there’s a memorial to the sight of an old french graveyard, dating back to the 1800’s. There is a boat trip out to the Pacific that promises sights of dolphins, or if there is a shark sighting like on the day we went, you could see sharks mauling seals. Al and I chose not to go, but the rest of the group (see above) went and we have yet to hear back on which maritime show they saw.

Instead, we went on a few hikes, all of which took us up very steep climbs up the hills surrounding the bay. Here’s a pic from an overlook on one of these walks.

Here is a shot from sea level, hopefully you can get an idea about altitude of which we hiked.

Well, today we’re just resting and will probably go over to Al’s mom’s and watch tennis. Its windy and raining out today, plus Al’s working after taking some time so that we could go on these little excursions. I’ll leave you with Saura overlooking Lyttelton from our newly claimed spot.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.