Fours, Sixes and some annoying Zeros.

Having already decided a Whale watching trip in Kaikoura was probably too expensive for our budget all we really planned to do in town was a short coastal walk to try and spot some more wildlife. As it happened whale watching was not as expensive as we thought, and there was also some fishing trips Stu was interested in, so we ended up spending most of our evening musing over possible plans of action. We gulped down some free soup from the hostel and came to a decision. I was going for the whale watching, and stu would go fishing. So off I toddled to the whale watch centre to book. The only tour with seats available on the only day we had was at 6.45 in the morning, so I went all in! After rising at stupid o'clock, I found myself in the whale watch centre getting pretty excited. We were lucky enough to see some hectors dolphin (very rare) before we even got on the bus. Our tour had a motion sickness warning, but I had no fear. Until we left the marina. The boat we were on was more like a speed boat than a tour boat and it travelled pretty fast over some considerable swell. Luckily I found I got used to the sensation fairly quickly, but many, many others did not, and there was a lot of used sick bags by the end. To add to this problematic start, we didn't find any whales at our first search location. Or the second, or third. In fact, we only had time for four stops, and despite finding some whales on the fourth stop, we were so far from home, and the whales were still so far away that we didn't have time to hunt them down and wait for them to surface. Long story short, we didn't see any whales, but we did have a really long rough ride back to port!! Not seeing a whale is so rare (98% success rate) the company refund you 80% of your money if you don't see any, so all was not lost, but the lady who refunded me said she could not remember the last time she had to do it. It turns out the whales we eventually found were 12 miles off shore, compared to only three the day before. And no surprises, every tour now had a 'severe' motion sickness warning. I was very disappointed, but at least I hadn't spent money purely to get sick. I'm not kidding, some people were really bad, even back at the whale watch centre afterwards. I felt terrible on the boat when I was enjoying a nice morning packet of crisps as people all around were sending food in the other direction!! I did also manage to see a few different types of albatross and some other interesting birds.
When I returned I learnt that Stu had actually decided against fishing, so between us the morning had been rather a damp squib. So we did our walk and then drove down to Christchurch where we planned to see the Canterbury Wizards play the Wellington Firebirds in a one day cricket match the next day. This day was far more successful!! We also managed to get hold of a new camera for Stu, which will aid us greatly in boring you with photos when we return, as mine has dust in the lens (again) so we have pretty much given up on it till I can get it sorted properly in the UK. And we also managed to finish last in the local pub quiz, even with the help of Jap the crazy Dutchman and 'Bruce Willis', having to do forfeit shots at one point for scoring zero in a round. They were looovely....
Anywho, the cricket... After entering the cricket ground and taking our seats, expecting someone to come round and sell us tickets, nothing transpired, so we got in for free! (Big shout to those who carried a sofa into the ground, great idea). Wellington opened and boshed a mighty quick hundred, followed by a rather dull middle stint before having another bosh at the end to reach a very respectable, and frankly quite worrying, 299 after 50 overs). Canterbury did not start as quickly, lost some early wickets and also had a fairly dull middle period. Thus they found themselves stuck in what looked like an impossible position. Clearly the two men at the crease backed themselves however. With about ten overs to go, Stewart hit a stunning six, and the flood gates opened. He went on to hit a century off 76 balls, having reached his fifty after 58. You can see the difference. Supported by Brownlie, who hit and unbeaten 83 to win the match, the partnership was worth 180 before Stewart left on 101 (hitting another silly six). The 'equation' (cheers commentator) was steadily dragged in the favour of Canterbury and the final result was a five wicket win with 7 balls left to play. Stunning stuff, and really good ice creams to boot.
After this we drove to Arthur's pass, carrying on the back seat a duvet we have 'borrowed' from a Christchurch hostel to improve the car sleeping. (Since we are actually going back to Christchurch, borrowed is actually apt). The drive was amazing, the scenery was unbelievable. Like, stupidly good. The game of horse is also hotting up, but I'm currently trailing Stu quite considerably. After a sneaky Pizza in Arthur's pass we found a spot to crash in the car and had a considerably improved rest under our nice new duvet (its not as gay as it sounds).
Today we have driven down to Franz Joseph Glacier and have just booked a full day glacier walk for tomorrow, mmmmm, icy...