Christchurch

After a lengthy bus ride we finally made it to Christchurch around 4pm. The hostel was only a short walk from the bus stop in the center of town. After we got checked in we went a rambling round the city center on the never ending quest for our next meal. After about two hours of indecision and wandering about the place, we finally went back to the Irish bar we first passed by and that we had two free pints vouchers for :o)
I ordered this massive burger and chips and Lisa went for the Seafood Chowder soup and brown bread. After our food and few pints we rambled back to the hostel to use the free internet. After seeing a poster in town for the comedian Ross Nobel playing the following night we tried to book two tickets to see him. We expected it to be sold out already but we were in luck!! As we finished up on the internet, a local whats on news paper headline caught Lisa’s eye. It was a small article on German house dj Ian Pooley. We had seen posters around Auckland and Christchurch for his NZ tour but we thought it was surely a different “ian pooley” and after we googled “ian pooley” + New Zealand” back in Auckland when we first arrived, to find some blurb about “Ian Pooley, New Zealands most important hard house dj” so we took it, it was some local guy with the same name and a bad taste in music :op But after we read the article we realized it was indeed the Ian Pooley we knew and loved and had seen a few times in Dublin. After about two seconds thought of “ouu should we do Ross Nobel AND Pooley in the one night?” the answer was a resounding “feck it, lets do it!”

The next day we had a nice sleep-in in preparation for the hectic evening ahead. We walked about Christchurch looking about shops for a few bits n bobs i.e. Lisa bought a handbag and we done a big shop in a massive budget supermarket. I also teased myself by looking at the new edition of Mixmag in a big magazine shop for the crazy priced 30 NZ dollars!
On the way home we stumbled across an Asian food court – woohoo cheap tasty eats! I had the hottest Thai Green Curry of my life and lisa went for the extra spicy Pad Thai which wasn’t hot at all!!!! They must have mixed the orders spiciness up. Much to our happiness Nobel was as hilarious as the first time we seen him in Dublin (the second time he wasn’t that good). The laughter and Steinlager set us up lovely for “The Concrete Club” Which wasn’t too busy when we first arrived but after about 3 drinks the place was getting very busy and the warm up dj Shannon Aston was rocking the place with this wicked new track on Dubsided by Jesse Rose (which I will search for)… anyway we drank ourselves silly, befriended the warm up dj, who bought us shots and introduced us to Ian Pooley (see funny pics) and stayed there till about 6am when we HAD to leave as our Trans Alpine train was leaving at 7:30am.
Oh the pain, straight home to pack our bags and head out for the free shuttle bus to bring us to the train station which NEVER APPEARED!! So we had to try and find a taxi and eventually get to the station in time to join the big backpacker queue still hanging from all the drink and serious lack of sleep. The train journey is supposed to be fantastic with amazing scenery all the way to Greymouth on the West coast. Apparently it was, but I wouldn’t know anything about that, coz all I did was snoooooooooze. Lisa did nudge me every now and again to show me a mountain or lake or something but I was out for the count.
After the train arrived in Greymouth we had to wait around for a bus and then travel a further 3 hours south to Franz Joseph, another journey we spent in a semi sleep state.