28/04/09

Had a crap night because cars kept beeping as they drove past all night, some of them even beeping for as long as 5 seconds as they zoomed past. We got up at about 10 and drove the final hour in to Christchurch. I instantly took a disliking to the place as we had to drive through 10km of nasty looking industrial areas before we hit the city centre. The signs for the city centre seemed to disappear so we ended up driving straight past and had to do the classic 4 or 5 loops around a round-about while Laura did a bit of map reading to suss out which way we should go. We finally found our way to the city centre via a whole host of 1 way streets and asking a random bloke for directions. When we arrived it just presented a new problem, where the hell to park, luckily during the first loop of the centre we found a 1 hour parking area which gave us time to wander to the info site ask all the usual questions and have a quick strole around the city. I wasn't really liking the city at the moment, driving through such and urban sprawl and then walking around areas where all you can see is concrete and breeze block after being in lush countryside for the past couple of months didn't feel good.

We headed back to the camper and picked the only car park on the list from the I-Site that had enough head room to accomodate us. As we approached I noticed a random pole with a piece of metal sticking out of it making the entrance to the car park very narrow. I shoved the front end in, but realised I hadn't got it in straight enough to go all the way so had to reverse back into the road, covering both lanes and blocking off all the traffic. I was getting really pissed off by this point and after 3 attempts at straightening it and having no luck the girls were telling me not to bother and to try and find somewhere else. So I reversed back out in to the road and one block over the others spotted a sign for $8 all day parking, I'd already driven past the entrance but luckily nothing was behind me so I reversed up again and drove in. There were abotu 3 empty spaces left, dotted all over the place, each the size for a normal car, not a huge camper. After about 10 minutes of an Austin Powers style parking effort I managed to squeze it in next to a 4v4 and a tiny little fiesta or something. The back end was under a centimetre away from the fiesta on the right and we were a little worried that they would ding us as they left. As we went to pay for the parking we realised we were in the wrong section, I had stuffed the thing in the reserved parking area. This got me fuming as I now had to reverse the b****** all the way back out of the car park and in to the road so I could turn around. For some reason a group decision was made to go for a different car park even after Laura and I had found the correct area to park in where there were s*** loads of spaces. We ended up driving around a load of one way streets again and managed to find this other car park. This one said we could only stay for a maximum of 3 hours and I was starting to get really pissed off, I couldn't remember what had been decided and ended up leaving the car park thinking we were heading back towards the other one, but it turns out they had decided we would pay for 3 hours. So we did another loop of the one way system and headed back to the car park. I'm pretty sure my driving was becoming rather erratic as I turned in to the car park millimetres from knocking down a lamp post and sending eveyone in the back bouncing about like a ride from Alton Towers. Now I had to park up for the last time, I was pretty fed up by now, they had placed flower beds all over the place making it impossible to manouver the thing around to park it parallel to anything. I got so pissed off I just drove straight over the flowers and half way in to a tree so I could reverse it back in to the space I wanted.

I was sweating like a b****** by the time we'd parked up so I got all my s*** together and went and got a hair cut. Probably the best hair cut I've had whilst traveling, the barber was a legend as well, nice and chatty, and not a raving homo caressing my head for hours. I then went to the public showers and had to wait because Pat was still in there. About 20 minutes later Pat came out and I then had to wait for ages again for the shower attendant to come and man his desk. The shower was s***, definately not worth $2, the water only lasted 30 seconds and I had to keep pressing the button in like one at a swimming pool. Every time it ran out and I pressed it in again it started off really cold. The nozzle was aimed at the wall and the water came out with such force that it all bounced off and went all over my dry clothes the other side of the room because some pikey b****** had stoled the shower curtain. Once I'd done I started shaving in the sinks of the public toilets and had a group of about 5 kids mocking me as they were clearly dealing some kind of drug around the urinals. After shaving half my face I noticed a familiar face in the mirror. I walked back to have a closer look, it was Emmas mate Tim whom we had met in 1770 and Airlie. Turns out Emma had been made redundant at home and got a 15k redundancy cheque.

I spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out in the botanical gardens and enjoying the good weather. I headed back to the van at about 4 and sat there bored out of my mind until 5 when the car park became free. At the stroke of 5 we were all up and out down the Holy Grail pub for a few games of pool. I had a few Radler beers and then we headed to Base for a few more. The girls went out to get take out but came back after a few minutes because Lauras card had been swallowed by the machine. Laura spent a while phoning banks and home to try to sort it all out and was given the hope that she may be able to get it back in the morning. The lads and I watched Mullet Man the street performer who showed up to base to do a spot of juggling and he then had a Rock, Paper, Scissors contest. He struggled to pick people from different nations as everyone in the pub was from Engalnd or Ireland. We sat around playing cards with some randoms and then the girls returned from their chinese. The whole place started to get a little bit too noisy for my liking so I headed back to the camper and went to bed at about half 9.

29/04/09

I was woken up at half 3 by more rain hammerind down on top of the camper. I couldn't get back to sleep and at about half 4 I started to need a s***, so I went for a walk in the pouring rain all the way in to the city centre to the 24 hour bogs. They were an absolute state. I got back at about 5 and still couldn't get to sleep, especially now I was soaking wet and freezing cold. I laid in bed and at about 6 Pat and Rich went to watch the football. I was pretty sick of laying in bed by 7 and got really fidgety. I ended up getting up and completely tidying the entire camper, doing all the washing up and drying and made tea for the girls.

Laura left to go to the bank at half 8 and when the guys came back we drove around trying to find somewhere cheaper we could park all day. We drove all the way around Hagley Park as the barber had suggested parking there yesterday, turns out theres a 3 hour limit on everywhere there, so we spent about 20 minutes navigating the one way system and parked up at the $8 place we found yesterday. I grabbed my stuff and went for a beer s*** in the toilets then found Laura on the phone at Global Gossip, she had been given more hope of getting her card back at 4pm. After spending a while on Global Gossip internet I then went to meet everyone at the library. I bumped in to Rich who told me he had another dodgy s*** and dodgy moment with the car keys, he had been walking back past a desk he was sat at when a kid held up a set of keys and asked if he knew who they belonged to. So lucky. The girls found a Cotton On on the internet so took a bus there. I spent the morning and afternoon in the library as the weather was too s*** to go to the gardens or do anything interesting. The girls came back about an hour later disappointed that the cotton on they had taken the bus to turned out to be an industrial estate with no shops at all. They did a bit more research and managed to find a shopping plaza even further away from the city that supposedly had a cotton on so off they went. I used the internet to do a bit of research for when we get to LA and then passed it over to the guys so I could sit and read for a bit.

I woke up to a guy in some overalls kicking me in the shin, it took me a while to realise that I had fallen asleep with my face in my book on the sofa in the library. The guy stayed standing there, gave me another light kick to the shin and said "that'll wake you up, don't eat it in here though". I looked to my side and there was a chicken and veg baguette wrapped in cling-film sat next to me, needless to say I was pretty confused. I was pretty disorientated but pretty hungry, so I went outside and cautiously sniffed and poked the baguette, after a few minutes I decided it was okay to eat. Once I'd finished it I asked someone the time, it was 1545, we had arranged to meet back at the camper in the car park at 1600 so I headed back. I popped in a few of the book shops on the way back because it was cold and raining, and got to the camper bang on 1600. I waited around in the freezing cold until 1730 when the others showed up after having sorted out all the LA stuff. We drove to Countdown and bought bits for dinner and then parked up at the place we parked the other night. I wasn't too hungry so didn't have anything for dinner and had an early night.

30/04/09

We got up fairly early and I drove us to the Campsite in centre of the city. The brochure said they would only take vehicles less than 7.2m, so we were a little worried we wouldn't fit. Luckily they offered us a spot so we plugged the power cord in and I got back in bed because it was freezing. Rich and Pat went into town at some point, the girls followed suit later on. I laid in bed reading until about 2 when the others all returned. At about 1430 Laura and I left to go to the cinema to watch Wolverine. Brilliant. We got back to the campsite at about 1730 but the others were still out at the library. We managed to catch an episode of Home and Away and some horrific Worlds Worst Videos on the TV in the kitchen. The others returned at half 6 after booking loads of the transport and accomodation for the States. We had a go at emptying the waste water with no luck. We spent the evening watching TV as it was the first place we had found that had TV signal. We watched an episode of CSI which made a nice change and then the F Word. They have so many ad breaks it is ridiculous.