Christchurch

my last day in New Zealand! this has been my 2nd day in chrischurch, which is a lovely city. i am staying in a hostel called Foley Towers which is lovely and quiet and friendly and has pictures of Basil Fawlty all over the place. I have done all the touristy things here, yesterday i went on the ride up the gondola which is half an hour out of town, have to say it was a lot of money for not that much, the Queenstown one was better. however i got the gondola/tram combo ticket which allows you to get on and off the restored trams in the city centre as much as you like. they are wonderful and i could have gone round and round all day. the driver gives a little talk about the sights etc and alerted us to a free play which was going on in the botanic gardens last night. so after i got off the tram i visited the Rutherford den, this is where Earnest Rutherford (you should know who he is you numpties - remember your physics) went to university and did lots of his experiments. it was a small free museum and was wonderful, i didn't realise what an amazing man he was, nor that he was a kiwi. he is on their 100 dollar note here, not that i've ever seen one! mind you that is only about 35 quid.
so in the evening i went to the play in the gardens - it was a 3 guys doing 'The greatest books - abridged' and was very funny.

this morning i went to the Antarctic centre which again is about half an hour out of town, this time near the airport. is in the centre where all the teams leave for the antarctic from, as Christchurch is the nearest city. Just over the road is the US team HQ. it cost a fortune to get in, 30 dollars but i got 10% discount for being a yha member. knew it had some benefits. as well as lots and lots of information and videos about Antarctica it had a 'storm chamber' where you went in and put on big coats and stood around in about -5, until every half an hour a storm came through which took it down to -25, along with low visibility and high winds. very chilly. they also had a little blue penguin house which is the worlds smallest penguin, about 1kg and they don't actually live in antarctica but new zealand and south australia so were quite happy living in a pond out the back. these ones had all been rescued and would die out in the wild. ie one was blind, several had deformed wings, etc etc. i saw them being fed and the lady said they all have distinct personalities. very sweet and i narrowly avoided buying a blue penguin teddy.
this afternoon i wandered round the botanic gardens and the museum, believe me i think i know more about new zealand history than uk history. not that theres much new zealand history anyway.
my flight to Australia is tomorrow morning at 6.45, so i'm going to have to get up super early, damn it. trying to eat all my food up because the Australians won't let you take in anything that looks like it has been anywhere near an animal or a plant. next time i write i'll be in sydney! nice and hot! yippee!