Day 27- November 29

Travel day, yay yay. There was a duck outside our door this morning. It was a glass door and it kept tapping its beak on the glass as if it was trying to come in. I opened the door but it just stuck it's head in and kept quacking. I tried to take a photo off it, but it just ran off. Must have been a bit camera shy.

Couldn't photograph the duck so here's a nice photo of the surroundings

It was a fairly brief bus journey (thank god), and our last one with kiwi experience too! I have mixed feeling about the kiwi experience bus. I think it's a good option if you want a very low fuss trip with everything sorted out for you, but if you want a little bit more flexibility, independence and less of a 'school-trip' feeling, I think buying a car would be the best option from what I've gathered. We've spoken to a few people who have done this, selling the car on at the end of the trip, and they all say they wouldn't do it any other way.

Blue skies all round- the bus was so hot it felt like a sauna!

We arrived in Christchurch around lunch time and it was boiling! The kiwi bus we were on had no air conditioning, which was typical, since every other kiwi bus cranked the air conditioning up so high your fingers went numb! It was like a nasty, sweaty sauna on there. Very unpleasant. We were glad to change into shorts and flip-flops on arrival at our hostel- YHA Christchurch.
I have found the YHA chain to be very reliable, clean and comfy hostels and this one was no exception. Built in what looked to be an old home before hand, it's twisted corridors and scattered staircases gave it a very homely feel.
We headed out to explore the area. Christchurch is a very interesting city. The first thing you notice is that it's very quiet. Everything is very spread out, and there didn't seem to be a city centre, or not one that we could find. We were walking for a while when we came across some brightly coloured boarding. Intrigued, we headed over to look inside, and stumbled upon Re:Start, Christchurch's shipping container mall.

After the devastating earthquake of February 22 2011, Christchurch was on its knees and many businesses had lost their shop buildings with no money to rebuild or repair them. Re:Start was the brainchild of the city’s Property and Building Owners group, who knew that the wait for new buildings would be too long and that people needed to be encouraged back into the CBD as soon as possible.

Buildings made out of shipping containers- extra earthquake resilient!

It was a very fun and lively area, with interesting, quirky artwork and entertaining signs. We browsed some independent shops and stumbled across an awesome smoothie stand, which was just what we needed on a hot day! They had a menu, but were really friendly and allowed us to swap in and out ingredients to our hearts' content.

'No flexing of egos'

With smoothies in our hands (and Lily got an iced coffee) we headed over to the botanical gardens. They were extensive and seriously impressive- there was a whole 400m3 or so dedicated to a rose
garden, displaying over 100 different kinds of rose which, as you can imagine, smelled delicious. It was nice just ambling through the gardens. We even got lost, they were so vast! There was even a river with punts floating down, which gave it a distinctly Cambridge-feel.

 

That evening, I took advantage of the YMCA building next door to the hostel, which had a cheap gym. I did some interval sprints on the treadmill, a push session on the weights (chest, shoulders, triceps), and finished with some ab work.It felt good to do some exercise and work hard again!
Dinner tonight was veggie bolonaise with rice as we had no spaghetti.

Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 can brown lentils
6 tomatoes
1 courgette
1 red bell pepper
1 large carrot
1 large sweet potato (peel if you want- hostel potato peeler was blunt!)
Around 8 button mushrooms
Spinach (maybe 100-200g)
Curry powder
Cinnamon

Method
- Dice tomatoes and finely chop courgette, carrot, bell pepper and sweet potato.
- Add all to a large saucepan with a splash of water, a heaped teaspoon of curry powder and teaspoon of cinnamon, then cover with a lid to cook. (You can add onion and garlic as aromatics beforehand, but the girls don't like these!)
- Cook for around 15-20 mins, or until veg is soft and has started to release water. Stir often to avoid sticking to pan.
- When soft, add drained can of brown lentils and continue simmering until liquid has reduced and sweet potato has broken down (you may need to mash it with wooden spoon).
- When the sauce is beginning to thicken up, add chopped spinach and stir in (I used pak choi as I still had half a bag left but spinach would have been nicer).
- When spinach is wilted, and sauce has thickened up and reduce, it's ready to serve! Add more curry powder, chilli flakes and black pepper to taste.