Adelaide
On January 22nd, I reluctantly left beautiful Perth (my time there went so very quickly!) and flew to Adelaide to spend a few days there before jetting off to New Zealand. As I said in a previous post, Jennie's (squidypoo's) mum lives there and offered to let me stay with her on short notice -- the conversation with Jennie on MSN went something like this:
J: Do you want to stay with my mum?
Me: Oh, I couldn't -- it's too short of notice!
J: Nonsense! She's on the phone now. She'll meet you at the airport at 2pm.
Haha. So three cheers for (once again) wonderful Australian hospitality! She even took the weekend off work to spend some time with me and show me around. She had to work on the 23rd (Friday), though, so I took the bus downtown and made us of a fantastic service called City Bikes that offers the use of FREE bikes to get around the city. I only had a couple hours, but I did make it to the gorgeous botanic gardens and saw some neat old buildings. I took my compact camera with me, but unfortunately, in addition to misplacing that other camera card, the one in this camera has fritzed and none of the pictures show up anymore -- so I have no photographic account of this day (oh, the horror!). However, I do have pictures from the second half of my Saturday with Angela.
To start the day, I took advantage of the free Coca-Cola surf school lessons at Glenelg Beach. Angela took some great pictures on my compact camera, but again, they are gone. :( However, there was a photographer there and apparently the pictures will be online eventually. In the meantime, I found this photographer's pictures, which will give you an idea of the set-up and beach. I was amused by Coca-Cola's choice of WHITE rashies (shirts to prevent you from getting a rash from scraping against the surfboard!), because they obviously got WET and what happens to white shirts when they get wet, kids? Moving on... although the lessons are quite popular, I ended up being the only one in the lesson, so I got one-on-one instruction. That didn't make me a surfing pro, though, because with the small waves that day, I didn't actually have much of a chance to get up on my board. I did kneel on it and ride a few waves in, however, and had a nice conversation with the instructor.
After this we went to the nearby German town of Hahndorf. It has lots of authentic German buildings, and many cute shops.
Even German-Australian towns have funny signs!
I think this one might be my favourite because you're just not expecting it.
I resisted buying this in a shop and instead bought a beautiful jewellery box made of native wood.
We talked to a guy who made stained glass art.
If only it wasn't so easily breakable, he might have made a sale (I think it looks like Theo!).
Cute cottage.
Cute streets.
Annnnd... a truck full of potatoes... very random and amusing!
On the way out of town... beautiful arching trees.
We went up to a lookout over the city.
The view was quite hazy and not worth posting, but the drive up was lovely.
We saw some neat buildings on the back through Adelaide.
Adelaide is known as the "City of Churches".
We stopped at this one to have a look around.
Angela's wedding cake looked like this church... imagine the work that went into that!
The next morning, Angela took me to the airport for my flight to Christchurch via Melbourne, and that brings you up to this post. But now that I have a moment, I'll explain in a little more detail. If you are a tourist in New Zealand, you have to possess a return or onwards plane ticket to prove that you plan to leave the country after your visit (I don't blame people for wanting to stay here!). I was also told that alternatively, you could show a bank statement to prove that you had at least $5000 to support yourself while here and therefore should also have enough money to buy a ticket out. In retrospect, this doesn't seem like an acceptable alternative, since you could just... not buy a ticket... and this advice was, in fact, not true. Anyway, I had had little sleep the night before and airports stress me out a bit as it is, so when the check-in clerk asked to see my return ticket, I was a little flustered and momentarily forgot that I have a working holiday visa, haha! She went so far as to tell me I had to go to the Flight Center and buy a future ticket home (to Canada) immediately or I would not be allowed to board the New Zealand flight. Then I said, "But, but... me... visa... work! 12 months!" and all was well. She did have to make a call and confirm this, however, because I applied online and I literally have nothing other than an email that says "You can has a visa!" to prove it.
That was not to be the end of my troubles, however. First, the flight was delayed by an hour due to a computer problem. Then I was further delayed when I arrived in Christchurch at midnight; because I had checked so many things on my customs card (I had sealed snacks with me, my wooden jewellery box, had been on a farm in the last 30 days, and had been in contact with horses), I had to take apart my bag to show him everything. He said he might as well just do a whole bag search while we were at it, so I wouldn't have to go through the X-ray too. Cue pulling everything out, and then trying to stuff everything back in to my previously neatly (and TIGHTLY) packed backpack.
When I finally got out, the shuttle that I had pre-booked and paid for online was not there, and since it was 1am, I decided I couldn't wait around and took my flight seatmates up on their offer to pay for another shuttle, since I had no NZ currency on me (as I had paid for everything I needed that night in advance). Ironically, we were going to the same hostel and I was able to pay them back the next morning. The hostel was nice, at least, and I even got a double bed, since that was the only one left in the room I had arranged a late check-in with.
My host (Jo) from Help Exchange picked me up the next morning, and I was off to the farm. And now, finally, I can tell you about the horses!
J: Do you want to stay with my mum?
Me: Oh, I couldn't -- it's too short of notice!
J: Nonsense! She's on the phone now. She'll meet you at the airport at 2pm.
Haha. So three cheers for (once again) wonderful Australian hospitality! She even took the weekend off work to spend some time with me and show me around. She had to work on the 23rd (Friday), though, so I took the bus downtown and made us of a fantastic service called City Bikes that offers the use of FREE bikes to get around the city. I only had a couple hours, but I did make it to the gorgeous botanic gardens and saw some neat old buildings. I took my compact camera with me, but unfortunately, in addition to misplacing that other camera card, the one in this camera has fritzed and none of the pictures show up anymore -- so I have no photographic account of this day (oh, the horror!). However, I do have pictures from the second half of my Saturday with Angela.
To start the day, I took advantage of the free Coca-Cola surf school lessons at Glenelg Beach. Angela took some great pictures on my compact camera, but again, they are gone. :( However, there was a photographer there and apparently the pictures will be online eventually. In the meantime, I found this photographer's pictures, which will give you an idea of the set-up and beach. I was amused by Coca-Cola's choice of WHITE rashies (shirts to prevent you from getting a rash from scraping against the surfboard!), because they obviously got WET and what happens to white shirts when they get wet, kids? Moving on... although the lessons are quite popular, I ended up being the only one in the lesson, so I got one-on-one instruction. That didn't make me a surfing pro, though, because with the small waves that day, I didn't actually have much of a chance to get up on my board. I did kneel on it and ride a few waves in, however, and had a nice conversation with the instructor.
After this we went to the nearby German town of Hahndorf. It has lots of authentic German buildings, and many cute shops.
Even German-Australian towns have funny signs!
I think this one might be my favourite because you're just not expecting it.
I resisted buying this in a shop and instead bought a beautiful jewellery box made of native wood.
We talked to a guy who made stained glass art.
If only it wasn't so easily breakable, he might have made a sale (I think it looks like Theo!).
Cute cottage.
Cute streets.
Annnnd... a truck full of potatoes... very random and amusing!
On the way out of town... beautiful arching trees.
We went up to a lookout over the city.
The view was quite hazy and not worth posting, but the drive up was lovely.
We saw some neat buildings on the back through Adelaide.
Adelaide is known as the "City of Churches".
We stopped at this one to have a look around.
Angela's wedding cake looked like this church... imagine the work that went into that!
The next morning, Angela took me to the airport for my flight to Christchurch via Melbourne, and that brings you up to this post. But now that I have a moment, I'll explain in a little more detail. If you are a tourist in New Zealand, you have to possess a return or onwards plane ticket to prove that you plan to leave the country after your visit (I don't blame people for wanting to stay here!). I was also told that alternatively, you could show a bank statement to prove that you had at least $5000 to support yourself while here and therefore should also have enough money to buy a ticket out. In retrospect, this doesn't seem like an acceptable alternative, since you could just... not buy a ticket... and this advice was, in fact, not true. Anyway, I had had little sleep the night before and airports stress me out a bit as it is, so when the check-in clerk asked to see my return ticket, I was a little flustered and momentarily forgot that I have a working holiday visa, haha! She went so far as to tell me I had to go to the Flight Center and buy a future ticket home (to Canada) immediately or I would not be allowed to board the New Zealand flight. Then I said, "But, but... me... visa... work! 12 months!" and all was well. She did have to make a call and confirm this, however, because I applied online and I literally have nothing other than an email that says "You can has a visa!" to prove it.
That was not to be the end of my troubles, however. First, the flight was delayed by an hour due to a computer problem. Then I was further delayed when I arrived in Christchurch at midnight; because I had checked so many things on my customs card (I had sealed snacks with me, my wooden jewellery box, had been on a farm in the last 30 days, and had been in contact with horses), I had to take apart my bag to show him everything. He said he might as well just do a whole bag search while we were at it, so I wouldn't have to go through the X-ray too. Cue pulling everything out, and then trying to stuff everything back in to my previously neatly (and TIGHTLY) packed backpack.
When I finally got out, the shuttle that I had pre-booked and paid for online was not there, and since it was 1am, I decided I couldn't wait around and took my flight seatmates up on their offer to pay for another shuttle, since I had no NZ currency on me (as I had paid for everything I needed that night in advance). Ironically, we were going to the same hostel and I was able to pay them back the next morning. The hostel was nice, at least, and I even got a double bed, since that was the only one left in the room I had arranged a late check-in with.
My host (Jo) from Help Exchange picked me up the next morning, and I was off to the farm. And now, finally, I can tell you about the horses!