Geekmobile Rocks!

We went on the Segway tour with Graeme from Urban Wheels today, and it was fantastic. DH may have jokingly referred to it as the 'Geekmobile' when we first saw the brochure, but it is a very cool way to get around. Besides, I've never denied being a bit of a geek!

Graeme was friendly and helpful, and we got a chance to practice before heading off on the tour. Using the Segway is a great way to cover more ground in a tour, while still being out in the environment, and the it is basically just a lot of fun to ride. Of course, being out in the midst of things can have its negatives - like when the weather turns nasty. While it did rain a few times, it didn't dampen our enthusiasm at all, and we ducked under convenient cover, like the thick canopy of an amazing old tree, a couple of times to sit out the worst of it. We got back just in time though - by the time we had finished parking the machines and had a brief chat it was bucketing down and hailing outside. We got soaked just crossing the road, and ended up getting a taxi back to our motel and having Thai delivered for dinner.

Actually, in my enthusiasm I jumped ahead of myself - we actually spent the morning at a craft market at the Arts Centre, and exploring the centre itself, which is filled with small 'stores' for various arts and crafts - woodworking, leatherwork, textiles, beads etc. Most of the spaces had workshops space where artisans could be observed, but some, like the bead store, were purely commercial. The bead store was huge - larger than anything similar in Melbourne, but disappointing in that, although it had some finished jewellery on display, it all featured Venetian glass. While I'm sure the Jewellery makers were locals, it was a shame that more NZ lampwork artists weren't featured - I only saw beads by one NZ artists on display.

We also visited Canterbury Museum and in particular, the exhibition for the NZ Glass Invitational. The exhibition was really interesting. Only a few exhibits (15 artists, from memory?) but all very different and featuring some lovely pieces.

We have an early start tomorrow - our transfer to the train station is at 7am. Then we take the Tranz-Alpine train across the island to Greymouth on the west coast.

Arriving in Christchurch

We arrived in Christchurch yesterday and walked into town to see the 'city', well, what there is of one. Christchurch is a picturesque town, but hardly a bustling metropolis. We were pretty tired after only a few hours sleep the night before, so we grabbed some dinner and had an early night. before we crashed, however, a few phone calls organised a fantastic day for today. We went by shuttle bus to a small coastal village about 80km's away called Akaroa. A lot of the cruise boats depart from there, and there is a lot of wildlife in the bay. The shuttle stopped several times to allow us to photograph the dramatic scenery - steep hills that were once the walls of the volcano that is now the bay at Akaroa. We had some lovely fish and chips for lunch, and then went on a 2 hour nature cruise with Akaroa Dolphins. The cruise was fantastic. While we were driving in, the sky was quite overcast, but it had burned off by 12:45, when we left. Blue sky, sparkling water... what more could you ask for? Well, dolphins please, if you don't mind... We were lucky enough to see several small pods of the tiny, rare Hector's Dolphin throughout the afternoon. They rode the bow wave of the boat, and even did a few leaps in front of us. I think I even managed to catch a photo of one mid leap, (it was quite hard to anticipate when they would come to the surface, never mind when they would choose to jump). I'm not able to connect my portable hard drive to this computer, so I will add photos later. We also saw fur seals, and one lonely little blue penguin, and the scenery alone was worth the trip. On the way back to the bus meeting point we stopped at Andrew Firth's glass studio - frustratingly billed a blown glass, when it was actually lampwork, but some lovely work. I bought a beautiful pendant - a version of a Maori symbol often seen carved in Jade and Bone. Tomorrow we are having a quieter day in Christchurch - a local tour on a Segway (yes, we are doing to tour just so we can ride one!) and some other local sites.