Snapshot Catch-up

I now have a new "home base" in Christchurch, so I will attempt to get back on the blog horse. I am WAY behind now, so rather than start from where I left off, I am going to do a very quick catch-up, start making new posts about my present circumstances, and fill in from the back as I have time. Eventually it will all get covered. Promise.

I arrived from Wanaka by bus (Naked Bus, if you must know) two days ago, at about 5pm. The stop was at Canterbury Museum, so I then walked to the Central Bus Station, and caught the local number 12 south to Cashmere. I had a bit of an experience with the bus driver, which I will not go into here, but I will put my complaint to their website in a future post, once I get a response. I leave you in suspense.

The studio apartment where I am staying in on the bottom.

I am staying in a little studio apartment that is part of a small complex on a wooded hillside. The apartment is rented out by an American architect that I met while staying in Auckland. She splits her time between Christchurch and Auckland, but right now she is back in the States, and very generously she offered her place to me while she is gone. It is a bit removed from the CBD, but there is a cafe at the bottom of the hill (5m walk) and a few restaurants and shops a bit further on (15m walk). Getting back to the CBD is easy, as the 12 bus stops at the cafe and heads straight back in. The Orbiter bus stops there as well, making it easy to get to other peripheral neighborhoods without going all the way to the central station and back out again.

The view from the apartment, to the north. You can just see the outline of the mountains.

Enough about now. Since my last post, I obviously finished my little train jaunt around New Zealand. Don't be confused now that I am on the South Island again, in the same town where I stopped writing before. This is my second trip here, and much has happened in-between. I returned to Auckland by ferry and train, and stayed at the Manor for many more weeks, applying for jobs (unsuccessfully, so far). I took another quick trip to Wellington for the annual New Zealand Urban Design Forum, a one-day event of presentations and networking. I made some good contacts, but still no luck subsequently on the job front.

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Finally, I got a bit discouraged and decided that it was time to leave Auckland and take a better look around elsewhere. I did not quit applying for jobs in Auckland, I just decided that I did not need to sit around there any longer. I'd been hearing since arriving in NZ about how wonderful Melbourne is (many Kiwis go and work there), so I thought I'd go check it out for myself. I actually have been to Melbourne before, but WAY back in 1991 when I participated in a People-to-People student exchange during the summer. I think that I was the youngest kid on the trip. Can't say that I remember a whole lot about it. Also, my great-grandfather James W. Fraser and his family spent some time in Hobart, Tasmania from 1912 to 1914, so I thought that as long as I was relatively close I'd go investigate that as well.

So I left an entire suitcase full of clothes and books at the Manor, and took only what I could fit in a medium-sized pack, also taking a standard back-pack as a carry-on with my computer and other essentials. Travelling very light. I stayed for close to a week in Melbourne and had a great time. I hung out a good bit with a fellow that I met at the Manor, and also with the woman that had sat next to me on the flight to Auckland from LAX. Thanks to her, I even got to go to an Australian Rules Football game. Great fun, and more on all that later.

Next I took the Spirit of Tasmania ferry across the Bass Straight to Devonport, Tasmania. The ferry was an overnighter, so in the morning I caught a shuttle bus at the wharf and drove across the island to Hobart, which is actually on the south side facing away from mainland Australia. I spent much more time in Hobart than I had intended, even pushing back my departure date from Australia in general. Again, I will flesh all this out later. Returning to New Zealand, I spent two nights in Melbourne and then hopped on a flight to Queenstown. There I was met at the airport by my friend Jay, an English actor that I also met at the Manor, and we drove to Wanaka.

In Wanaka I stayed with Jay and his family for about a week. His wife's father owns a winery and three vineyards close to there, and that is why they relocated from London. The father plans to return to the U.K. for a bit, and they will stay to look over things while he is gone. Wanaka (and the whole region generally) is absolutely gorgeous. I have already posted many pictures to FB, but will repost the best here with explanations, etc. Jay and I had planned on driving to Christchurch together, but he caught a chest infection from his 3 year old son and lost a crown on one of his molars, so I decided to carry on without him, while he gets himself fixed up. Hopefully he will come down for a visit soon, as he hopes to have some acting-related business here. That brings us back to the top, and to the end of this entry. More soon.