Job Update

Today I found out I am not needed for the job tomorrow. This is a shame but the agency said they would send my CV to Environment Canterbury for a position of Records Admin for 4 months starts asap! So fingers crossed

The Storm

Well today we have a front coming down south which has brought rain and snow and winds up to 180km and snow down to 200m which will mean snow on the port hills where I work.(already causing floods just 1 hr from us)

Went to see the Dark Knight yesterday with the french guys and Anne Sophie and a German called Willi.

Finished work now till Sunday so going to the CD Brewery tomorrow with the french guys.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10524292

Mark at his work

 

His manager took this picture, I love it and thought you would all like to see!

Canterbury provincial Council buildings

We went to look round this building and it's amazing architecture yesterday and it was surprisingly informative and amazing!!

There were lot of long corridors with stone floors leading to amazing rooms

 

Below is the best room we saw

All in all it was a great hour spent and free too!!

Job update

Well, good news for me I registered with Enterprise today and they already got me a  job next Friday for a few hours doing data entry!!

The only other thing to update is through Mark's job we could, if we wanted apply for Residency. This is good news and gives us the choice on wether to stay in New Zealand or go back to UK. We still want to complete our Working Holiday, but we have discussed various options that we have in the Residency aspect!!

Weather is crap at the moment so probably won't update any trips for a while..

Methven & Mount Hutt

Today we went to Methven which is basically a ski resort.

We arrived at 10.40 which gave us 6 hours till we had to head back to Christchurch.

So we decided to first have some lunch at the only place that was open

Mark and his burger!!

After lunch Mark suggested going up to Mount Hutt to look at views. But we only spent half an hour up there due to the mountain being closed as too much snow!!

On the deck at the base of the Ski station

 

Edit: In the morning I dragged Mark to where the LOTR cast stayed while filming at nearby Edoras!!

Irish Pub

Yesterday we went out with the french dudes Seb,JB,Julie Folle (Mad Julie)another story!! and also Emily.We went to the cinema and watched Hancock then we all headed down to The Bog (Named after the toilet good hey) There will be pictures of this later!!

Plus we found out JB had been disappearing often a few doors down from us and having some extra homework sessions with Anne Sophie another french girl who lives in our house.KNOCK KNOCK

City Walk

Today we went for a city walk went in a couple of local cathedrals and art galleries and also a classic car museum. 

Job Update

I am now officially a photographer for the Christchurch gondola and start work this Monday

Castle Rock Reserve

Today we walked up to the Castle Rock which was pretty cool with mega views. Once again the Weather was great and warm

We spent about 4 hrs doing this walk and combining at least 3 sections of different ones as well. We had 360 views of the whole of Canterbury very nice indeed

The marker on top of The Tors hill at 452m above sea level

Go Karts Greymouth

Bit late with this one but here are a couple of pictures of this adventure!!

Tranzalpine to Greymouth

Well we have come back from Greymouth, we had great time with fantastic view of the alps on both journeys!!! We have been lucky with the weather on all our trips up to now!!. Once we arrived in Greymouth we had pizza in the only decent looking place to eat in the town, then we rushed down to the sea side to watch the sunset                                           We stayed in a backpackers called Noah's Ark because when the town was flooded it was the only house that was not. It was used for refuge for the town people. For the next morning I had booked off road go karts which was well good and fun watching Elizabeth getting covered in MUD!!!. Plus I did too. But Elizabeth did not really like it only did it for me. Plus found it very cold as Elizabeth said she got too cold to enjoy it!!

We got taken back to the train station and found our train was running an hour and half late!!!!. So went to the warehouse the only decent shop in town. Below is a picture of Bez the puppy which belonged to the backpackers.

Remember click the photo link for more pictures of the trip

Job Interview

I am so happy got interview for job as photographer at the Christchurch Gondola on Thursday.

Wish me luck!!

Transalpine

Today we have booked our Transalpine train trip we will be going from Christchurch to Greymouth on Tuesday, we leave at 8:15 and arrives at 12:45 we are staying the night at Noah's Arc Backpackers.And will be back in Christchurch on Wednesday around 6:30pm

Also the French guys (Seb&JB) have offered us there spare seats in the car to go walking with them some time.

Crepes in NZ

Today we went to the market at the Art centre and had crepes. I had banana and dark chocolate and Mark had strawberry coulis

Had a lazy day, Mark found another cache!!

Hanmer Springs

Today we went to Hanmer Springs. First we went for a walk up to Conical Hill where there was a magnificent view of snow covered mountains.

On the way down I took a picture of Mark

When we had our BBQ lunch we went to the thermal pools where there were pools of varying degrees the hottest being the Sulphur pools at 40 degrees!! (plus they are outside and it was SNOWING)

this is not the Sulphur pool by the way, hehe!

On the way back we went to the Mud House for wine tasting

Sign of the Kiwi

Today we went to Victoria park and did the Harry Ells walk to the Sign of the Kiwi stopping to have a coffee before continuing along part of the Crater rim walkway.

 

We encountered a couple of kiwi bicyclists that were unfriendly!!

We heard them say " tourists park the car in front of the view and back into road and trucks could run into them, f**cking tourists should go back to their own country" we thought it was kind of funny as New Zealanders are mostly friendly:-)

 

Before heading home Mark found a cache at the Sign of the Takahe

A lovely sunny day in amidst cold, wet and windy days, we were lucky!!