6 January 2025

Okay, now that I’m actually writing this on the 7^th, I’ve got to remember what we did on the 6^th…

Ah, yes. It was a good evening.

You may remember that we’d bought some chocolates whilst in Riverside Mall in Christchurch, and that we’d stored those that we hadn’t eaten in the communal fridge. When Pen went to get our drinks last night, she couldn’t see them. I asked the “warden” if the fridge had had a clear out, as we’d properly labelled the food, (name, room number, date leaving) but they hadn’t.

This morning, because everyone was delving into the fridges to get their breakfasts, it was easier for us to check if the chocolates had been tucked behind something. Which, I discovered, was exactly what had happened. I held someone’s bag of groceries, whilst Pen hauled our chocolates out.

My breakfast this morning, was the yoghurt/fruit salad combination that I’d bought from the New World. Which was quite nice.

What wasn’t so nice was that the hand towel roller ran out again. I told the (new) warden and she said that the cleaners would be in action in ½ hour, so they’d do it then. (Not good hygiene in the meantime.)

Onion walking away from the scene of the crime…

Pumpkin and Onion

When we finally left the Jailhouse Accommodation, having got more photographs, it was overcast but, fortunately, not raining. Which was good as we had to wait for the bus to take us to the Bus Interchange where we were going to leave our bags, do a bit of a look around, and then catch the bus to Oamaru.

As I thought, the new nationwide EFTPOS ticketing service hasn’t been rolled out in Christchurch yet, so I had to pay cash. Using my emergency $5.00 note to buy my $4.00 bus fare.

However, it was once we got to the Bus Interchange that the fun really started.

I’d rung up that morning to ask if the Bus Interchange had locker storage. I was told that it didn’t, but that a store called “Zesto” would look after your bags for you.

Okay. That seems daft, but simple enough.

It seems simple…

Firstly, we had to ask at the information desk where the bags were stored. We were directed to a convenience store.

The lady behind the store’s counter was very helpful. Could we show her the QR code we’d received, so she could scan it and associate it with our bags?

What QR code?

So I spent the next ¼ hour, firstly, showing her our bus ticket (on my tablet), which didn’t have a QR code, then trying to access the Internet so I could show her the unremembered QR code on the InterCity bus ticket email. I ended up tapping into Joe’s Garage since the citywide free Wi-Fi wasn’t talking to my tablet, but we still didn’t have a QR code. It turned out that the bag storage is run by some outfit called “Radical Storage” who have an app for the customer to download and book storage space. All well and good if you know that Radical Storage exists and have access to Internet for downloading. Eventually, I had to hotspot my tablet off the shop assistant’s phone to get the QR code and we were finally able to leave our bags.

This evening, I found an email from Radical Storage asking for a review. This is what they got: We had never heard of Radical Storage. The information kiosk directed us to the shop that stored bags and, once there, the shop assistant kept asking for the QR code. She didn’t realise that we had no knowledge of Radical Storage and we thought she was talking about our bus ticket. I had to log onto the Internet by hotspotting off her phone to get the email from Radical Storage. A terrible experience with Radical Storage. (But not with the assistant.)

We were so frustrated that we had our freshly found chocolates as we walked along the road to make us feel better.

Now that we didn’t have bags to worry about, we finally were able to walk to our destination: Quake City. This is a museum about the 2010/2011 Canterbury Earthquakes and Pen was a little concerned that it would be kind of trivialise and have a fun fair element to it. (Te Papa has a simulator representing the 1987 Edgecombe Earthquake and she thought it would be triggering to the locals to experience their earthquake all over again. There is a sign up at Te Papa warning Cantabrians about the simulator.) But it’s not like that. It tells the story of the earthquakes, along with radio broadcasts and a very young-looking Hillary Barry reading the TV3 news. It has items that were damaged in the ‘quakes – e.g. the cross off the spire of the ChristChurch Cathedral. It demonstrates liquefaction. It has the stories of those who came to help – the “Student Volunteer Army” (with New Zealand Wheelbarrows’ Constructor wheelbarrow) and “Farmy Army”. (Farmers who volunteered feed, water, and heavy equipment for digging out liquefaction.) It has the stories of the people who were caught up in the earthquake.

It was very sobering, remembering what happened and relearning how it affected people.

I’ve only just discovered how to do captions

We didn’t have long enough there, but did at least manage to go through once and see a couple of the ten minute videos. If we’d gone to the other option, Canterbury Museum, it had such a diverse range of topics that we wouldn’t have been able to see it all.

When time was counting down, we went and got our bags, before buying a toastie from the Muffin Break, so I had something in my stomach before the trip. Then I needed to go to the toilet.

There was a queue. Fortunately, the last two ladies in the queue were waiting for someone to come out of the toilet and let me go before them. There are six unisex toilet cubicles in the Bus Interchange. The one at the far end had a sign saying: “Use toilet next door.” The one I ended up using had a hand dryer that wasn’t working.

Guess that’s why you wear longs and not shorts. So you can dry your hands on them.

Because we hadn’t bought the Gold Class tickets on our InterCity bus, we ended up in the fifth row. I didn’t even think of Gold Class when I bought the tickets, because there’s a double-decker bus on the Thames to Auckland run and I prefer the cattle class where you go upstairs and can actually see where you’re going – especially if you score a front seat. But these buses are single-decker and the front three rows are Gold Class with leather seats, more legroom, USB ports, and probably other luxuries. Because we were getting off at Oamaru we weren’t the first checked onto the bus and had to take the first free seat closest to the front.

Despite this, it was a good trip. He was an excellent driver and this bit of State Highway 1 was largely straight, so I didn’t have any problems.

The further south we went, the clearer the skies became and it was quite pleasant in Timaru (which should be Te Maru) by the time we stopped there for a ½ hour break. One guy ordered Dominos Pizza, which arrived just as we were being allowed back onto the bus. Of course, because of the smells, hot food isn’t allowed on the bus, so he gulped down what he could in about two minutes. I noted that he was eating pizza again when we got off the bus at Oamaru and everyone hopped out for a break, so the driver may have let him store it in the luggage hold.

As this was our last stop for the day, we walked along Thames Street (nice of them to make me feel at home) to the Brydone Hotel. This is quite possibly the best place we’ve stayed at so far. The Art Deco interior and chandeliers certainly felt special. They had a good restaurant too, so we had tea downstairs.

Pen – BANGERS AND MASH $30 (GF)

• Lamb and herb sausages with green onion and potato mash and caramelised onion gravy
• Bundenberg Lemon lime and bitters

Me – PULLED PORK PAPPARDELLE $20 (DF optional)

• Slow braised pork shoulder with cherry tomatoes, garlic and paradelle, topped with parmesan
• Ginger beer

Very enjoyable.

As the sun was setting and lighting up the historic limestone buildings from one angle, we did a walk along Thames Street and got some photos. Our plans were to get photos of the other side of the street, when the other side was being lit up, the following morning.

Oamaru – NOT the Christchurch Bus Exchange

It was what followed that was the day’s highlight.

We were in Oamaru, so we wanted to see some Little Blue Penguins – known as Fairy Penguins in Australia. We were advised by the hotel manager that there was always a chance of seeing them along the foreshore, or we could pay and see any that chose to come ashore at the dedicated viewing “arena”. I fancied this as I figured this would increase our chance of seeing them.

Being written on the 8th

And so we walked along to penguin colony viewing station, where, admittedly you had to pay to use. We got into the queue…

At least I got into the queue. Pen made use of the facilities, and got back just as I reached the door, so that worked well.

They’d just started the introductions when we were escorted through to our seat, which was the bottom one of a terraced arrangement of concrete platforms. This was fine. Whilst the higher seats were able to look down onto the action, we were almost at penguin eyelevel.

Or NZ Fur Seal eyelevel. Just beyond the fence that kept penguins and people apart lay a very unconcerned looking seal. It just lay there, with an occasional scratch, or shift of position to try to get more comfortable. As it was lying on a flat bit of concrete, and probably did so frequently, I figured that it was enjoying the warmth the concrete had retained from the day’s sun.

And then we waited. Watching the seals’ activities, including a couple of youngsters frolicking on the rocks and in the water.

On the other side of the viewing area are the premium seats. Here was a smaller stand where those who’d paid the extra were able to sit on more comfortable plastic seats and watch the penguins scurry through the specially designed holes in the access boardwalk. I don’t know that they really got any better view than us, except for maybe being able to see the penguins climb the quite steep and rocky bank to the flat nesting area.

Sorry, cameras or any type of electronic recording equipment weren’t allowed, so I had to put my camera away. In fact, Pen was just opening her bag so that I could put my camera into it, when one of the announcers came over to apologetically tell me that photography wasn’t allowed.

A shame, but it would have been too dark for photographs for much of it anyway.

The ladies doing the commentary (one in English, one in Mandarin(?)) were right in front of us, but they weren’t the easiest to hear. This was understandable as they were speaking quietly, and the speakers were broadcasting quietly, so that they wouldn’t upset the stars of the show. The lights that were on were of a red and orange hues, that didn’t upset the penguins, but did give us humans a chance to watch what was going on.

There is a watch tower where someone stands spotting the arrival of the penguins, and this information is relayed to the announcers. They, in turn, told us that a raft of penguins were seen approaching, so to watch out for the black dots in the sea.

And then we could see them! We watched as the penguins porpoising towards the shore in a tight group. This was a case of safety in numbers, in case a predator was lurking nearby.

But we didn’t see any.

We also couldn’t see the approximately 25 penguins haul themselves out of the water or clamber up the rocky bank (for the most part). But we got a clear view when they reached the top. They sort of clustered together for a bit as if they were getting their bearings, and then they hightailed it through the boardwalk openings and found their nesting boxes.

And then we had to wait for the next group. These seemed to appear out of nowhere, as I didn’t see them arrive. There must have been more than four of such groups, with a total of about 200 birds that arrived. Aside from the one that I think may have tripped, tumbled a short way down the bank, and then decided that it didn’t like this altitude lark and had run the rest of the way down to the water’s edge – to the accompanying gasps and “awws” of the audience, and shushes from the announcers.

All this was great, but we had the best bit.

The Penguin People had built the arena to enable the penguins to go through the specially prepared (and monitored with counters(?)) access holes under the boardwalk. However, some of the penguins had quickly learnt that there was a shortcut through the entrance to our concrete viewing area. These eight penguins marched up to the fence in front of us (ignoring the lazing fur seal) hesitated a bit, and then scrambled underneath and down the passageway between our seating!

It even got better.

A few decided that they didn’t fancy going the expected way and clambered over the rocks on the other side of the fence right in front of us to their nesting boxes.

Then…

One, having decided that this was the way to go but why make it difficult for yourself, walked along the footpath barely 1.5 metres in front of our feet. There was nothing between us and it, so we were able to see it and its plumage, still wet from the swim.

The whole $45 entrance fee was worth it just for that.

All in all, some 200 Little Blue Penguins made their way up the rock wall and to the nesting boxes provided by the Blue Penguin Colony team.

We were also entertained by watching the seals. At one point a bull seal came over to a younger one and butted chests with it to clear out of his space. The younger one took the hint and made like a tree.

And then it was time to leave. Even then we took our time as some penguins had decided that they quite liked being under the stands and were sitting there. Some were still making their way to the nesting boxes, so we were able to watch them. And even when we left the cordoned off area, we still saw penguins on the way home. At one point we had to stop about ten metres away (two car lengths, as the signage helpfully tells us, whilst neglecting to say whether the cars are minis or SUVs) whilst two penguins decided when to make a dash across the footpath and into the cliff beyond – or under the sheds that were there.

We saw more than penguins. The sky was clear and the stars and planets bright and we were easily able to see Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn… With the help of the Stellarium app on Pen’s phone to confirm that we were seeing what we thought we were seeing. I was the one who saw Mars, and I only recognised it because it was really red in colour.

Steps = 18063

Kilometres =12.5