Tag: adventure

Christchurch, New Zealand

I’ll start this post with a bit of an add for this awesome gentleman. Scotty of ScottyB Tours was our tour guide for our 5 days in and around Christchurch. He was a fantastic guide too! He was knowledgeable and very interesting to listen to. He knows the area extremely well and had lots of interesting stories along our journey. We highly recommend him if you are ever in New Zealand, he is available for tours anywhere on the South Island!
If your interested, his website is: http://www.scottybtours.com
Our first day was a tour of Christchurch itself. Our first stop was this place. The site was a building that housed Canterbury Television Station, King’s Education Language School, Hair Consultants, Relationship Services and The Clinic Medical Center. On February 22, 2011, an earthquake of 6.3 Magnitude struck the city and the building collapsed, killing 115 people and injuring many more inside. The site is now a memorial honoring the lives lost that tragic day.
This was part of the foundation of the building.
A memorial to those lives lost.
This is a church that they lovingly call the “Cardboard Cathedral”. It was designed and erected next to the memorial and it got its name because what you are looking at is the roof of the chapel
and those are 100 heavy duty cardboard tubes coated with waterproof polyurethane and flame retardant.! They sit on 8 shipping containers which form the base and walls. It was designed by a famous Japanese architect Shigeru Ban in association with a local firm Warren and Mahoney.This is their temporary place of worship while the original church is under construction to repair the damage caused by the earthquake.
Even the chairs that are the “Pews” are in keeping with the Japanese theme.
This is the Christ Church Cathedral which as you can see is fenced off while they work on it. Completion of the project is not until the end of 2027!
Local artists took advantage of the fencing and are displaying some beautiful artwork!
Next on our tour was the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. As you’ll see.
As you’ll see in the next several pictures it was very colorful, especially since this was the beginning of their fall season!
That is a huge tree! Especially compared to Joni and Lane!
Not all the flowers are real or life size!
Lane on the left, Jan in the middle, Scotty and Joni to the right.
Quite a variety of different color roses too!
We loved this fountain!
Some of the beautiful old buildings around the Gardens
There is also some interesting art pieces scattered throughout the city too!
Down along this river they have installed another memorial to those lives lost in the earthquake of 2011.
I’m not sure what this is about, kind of odd!
Christchurch is where a lot of the expeditions to Antartica leave from! They’re only about 3500 miles from there. It seemed weird that the farther south you go down here the colder it gets; opposite of where we live!
More beautiful flowers!
We had lunch at Delilah, a very cool restaurant with great food!
After lunch Scotty took us to this trail that lead to a great view of the bay.

That’s it for Day 1 of our Adventures with Scotty. Stay tuned for Day 2……..

Sydney, Australia (contd)

Blue Mountain Tour

The Blue Mountain Tour included Fantastic views of the Blue Mountains, the Hydro Majestic Pavilion, Scenic World, and a Zoo which had everything from Koalas to Kangaroos to a very large Crocodile!.

Hydro Majestic Pavilion
Beautiful views of the Blue Mountains on or way up.
Jan was particularly fond of this piece.
The views from inside were quite beautiful.
The color scheme and decor was quite “arresting”.
The billiards room with the biggest pool table we
have ever seen!
This place had quite a eclectic assortment of decor and furnishings!
I snuck a quick picture of the very elegant main dining room which we weren’t allowed to enter.
The main check in area. The is a living vine behind it!
Outside the building were ver beautiful landscaping and fantastic views of the Blue Mountains.
This fellow apparently can’t decide what color hair he wants!
One lone Cockatoo!
Young and vibrant
Older and not so vibrant!
Back on the bus with our fabulous guide Leonard and his little pal (I forget his name!)

On to Scenic World!

Our first mode of transportation was this Cableway
The glass floor was a bit disconcerting!
This formation is the famous Three Sisters
It was a beautiful ride but there seems to be an awful lot of slack in those cables!
It was very lush and green up there!
The next mode of transportation was quite different. It’s a Scenic Railway Incline and you can choose how inclined you want to be!
Three Sisters in the distance.
Once at the bottom there was nice wide path to follow with things to see on the way.
Lots of displays depicting the mining operations .
This was the original Scenic Railway Incline, not quite as plush and comfortable as the current one!
Here’s my obligatory lawyer picture of the working of the cable car.
Now they show this after we’re trapped at the bottom and have to take the cablecar back up!
On our way back up.
A bit cloudier on the way back up!

On to the Zoo

Of course they had plenty of these cute fellows & gals!
Just chillin’
This isn’t a baby Kangaroo, its a Tasmanian Pademelon.
Whatcha’ lookin’ at?!
Native language hyrglyphs? Your guess is as good as mine!
Tasmanian Devil, perfect name for this odd creature!
Koalas sleep most of the time! Kind of like cats!
No Zoo is complete without a VERY large Crocodile! You’ll notice he’s in that tank all alone! Such a cute smile only his mother could love!
And we finish with monkeys doing what monkeys do: monkey around!

To be continued with a more in depth look at the Opera House…