We set our alarms for 6am as we had Utd v Villa to watch. Another painful rise from our slumber as we tried not to wake the two hung over lads staying in our dorm. We were disappointed Utd could only manage a 0-0 draw with Villa and were even more disappointed that we couldn’t go back to bed as we had to check out at 10am.
We surfed the internet, shot some pool, went for coastal walks and licked ice creams in the 30 degrees heat to pass the time till our bus journey back to Christchurch.
On the bus the most interesting story to tell was the drivers miss pronunciation of the word cathedral. It had everyone on the bus in stitches! We couldn’t even replicate it no matter how much we tried that evening. We checked into our hostel City Oasis that night and went for a Chinese hoping it would match the buffet in Spain we enjoyed. On the way back Gary noticed he didn’t have the key on him for the hostel and must have left it back at the restaurant. WORST THING EVER! We had to walk back up Manchester Street, also known as “Prostitute Street“. Tom compared them to the Kiwi as they are nocturnal and only come out at night! With the key back in our possession we headed back to the hostel and feasted on our sweets as we chilled out and watched a movie.
We decided to have a much needed sleep in after getting up so early the day before. Today our plan was to visit Orana Wildlife Park just twenty minutes outside the main city of Christchurch. The park is New Zealand’s only open range wildlife and conservation centre specialising in endangered African and New Zealand animals. All the workers at the park are all volunteers so they really must love spending times with the animals all day. The main attraction of the park was the Lion Encounter which consisted of climbing into a cage on the back of a truck and being driven around the lion’s habitat. The lions climb on top of the truck and along the sides. If the lions get too excited or start attacking one another they have to be feed big steaks to calm them down. We didn’t bother doing this as we got to get up close with them anyway and were worried that the lion on top of the truck might piss on top of us!
The parks had over twenty different species of animals and had presentations of the animals being fed. The spider monkey presentation was great and we learned who ruled the roost and how to distinguish between the male and female monkeys.
We got to feed the giraffes ourselves which was an amazing experience. They had disgusting big black tongues which they used to grab the leaves from our hands.
Next we got to see the rhinos and learned that they could run backwards. You learn something new everyday. I could go on all day listing off all the different types of animals we seen at the park.
Last on our list was to see the Kiwi but unfortunately the little fecker wouldn’t come out for the fifteen minutes we were waiting for him! Tom even thought flashing his camera would lure him out but that wasn’t the case. It would have been a good way to leave New Zealand seeing the native bird.
That night we arranged to meet Dave Brennan (a Galway man!) and his girlfriend Claire for a few drinks and a chat about our travels so far. Dave went to secondary school (The Bish) with the lads and will be living in Christchurch until February before moving on to Australia and Thailand. We shared all the stories we had about South America and New Zealand and heard all of theirs about Canada and the USA. The lads also discussed their old Bish days. It was great to share our experiences and we decided to meet again tomorrow for a kick around at the local park. They even offered to cook us a fry in the morning! We weren’t saying no!
The circle of life,
Mike
We surfed the internet, shot some pool, went for coastal walks and licked ice creams in the 30 degrees heat to pass the time till our bus journey back to Christchurch.
On the bus the most interesting story to tell was the drivers miss pronunciation of the word cathedral. It had everyone on the bus in stitches! We couldn’t even replicate it no matter how much we tried that evening. We checked into our hostel City Oasis that night and went for a Chinese hoping it would match the buffet in Spain we enjoyed. On the way back Gary noticed he didn’t have the key on him for the hostel and must have left it back at the restaurant. WORST THING EVER! We had to walk back up Manchester Street, also known as “Prostitute Street“. Tom compared them to the Kiwi as they are nocturnal and only come out at night! With the key back in our possession we headed back to the hostel and feasted on our sweets as we chilled out and watched a movie.
We decided to have a much needed sleep in after getting up so early the day before. Today our plan was to visit Orana Wildlife Park just twenty minutes outside the main city of Christchurch. The park is New Zealand’s only open range wildlife and conservation centre specialising in endangered African and New Zealand animals. All the workers at the park are all volunteers so they really must love spending times with the animals all day. The main attraction of the park was the Lion Encounter which consisted of climbing into a cage on the back of a truck and being driven around the lion’s habitat. The lions climb on top of the truck and along the sides. If the lions get too excited or start attacking one another they have to be feed big steaks to calm them down. We didn’t bother doing this as we got to get up close with them anyway and were worried that the lion on top of the truck might piss on top of us!
The parks had over twenty different species of animals and had presentations of the animals being fed. The spider monkey presentation was great and we learned who ruled the roost and how to distinguish between the male and female monkeys.
We got to feed the giraffes ourselves which was an amazing experience. They had disgusting big black tongues which they used to grab the leaves from our hands.
Next we got to see the rhinos and learned that they could run backwards. You learn something new everyday. I could go on all day listing off all the different types of animals we seen at the park.
Last on our list was to see the Kiwi but unfortunately the little fecker wouldn’t come out for the fifteen minutes we were waiting for him! Tom even thought flashing his camera would lure him out but that wasn’t the case. It would have been a good way to leave New Zealand seeing the native bird.
That night we arranged to meet Dave Brennan (a Galway man!) and his girlfriend Claire for a few drinks and a chat about our travels so far. Dave went to secondary school (The Bish) with the lads and will be living in Christchurch until February before moving on to Australia and Thailand. We shared all the stories we had about South America and New Zealand and heard all of theirs about Canada and the USA. The lads also discussed their old Bish days. It was great to share our experiences and we decided to meet again tomorrow for a kick around at the local park. They even offered to cook us a fry in the morning! We weren’t saying no!
The circle of life,
Mike
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