Oh man...the waves...the waves...

Yeah, so I'm a bit excited right now. I spent the last couple days in the water and it felt so, so good. The waves were small and not so organized but it didn't really matter. Sunny days, surfable waves...I can't wait to get up to Raglan and spend a week or so there. mmmm....waves...

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself...again. I last checked in in Dunedin about a week ago. I ended up spending three nights there. Dunedin is a fairly large city as south island standards go. It's home to the University of Otago, http://www.otago.ac.nz/ New Zealand's oldest and, I think, largest university. The student body is about 20,000 which swells the town population to near 100,000 while school is in session. It being summer now, pretty much all the students have left for the holiday so it's a lot quieter than usual. My stay in Dunedin was relatively uneventful, but I did see part of a Cricket match between New Zealand and the local team and on Sunday Dunedin held their annual Santa Claus Parade with a very nice turnout of people. I stayed at a pretty cool hostel called Hogwartz. I nice older building on top of a hill overlooking the town. I should have probably gotten out to the Otago peninsula to check out the penguin and Albatross colonies, but I didn't so I guess I'll have to check them out next time I come through. Here are some pictures from Dunedin.

Cricketeers leaving the field for a break

That was a wicked Googlie!!

It's cool, you can walk completely around the pitch with no impedance. The crowd is welcome to sit right up next to the edge of the playing field.

I took a little walk around Dunedin and found myself in another cemetery. This one had a beautiful location but it was very eery. A lot of the graves were in need of some serious care.

This doesn't look like a good omen. Almost a clean split right down the center of the family

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that grave has collapsed in on itself. It wasn't the only one.

Further along on my walk I found another Botanical Garden. This one wasn't as nice as the Christchurch garden but it wasn't too shabby and it did have an aviary which was pretty cool.

Dunedin is home to the Speights brewery, the largest beer seller in New Zealand. They had a tour so I was obliged to attend.

They had a nice lead in to the actual brewery workings with many displays showing the history of beer around the world as well as in New Zealand.

Water purifiers. The brewery sits on top of 5 fresh water springs. There is a faucet outside the building and locals fill up over 1 million liters of water there every year. I saw a couple of people with at least 10 jugs they were filling.

Mmm...hops..but don't eat them, you'll be sorry

The all important beer tasting. Similar to the Monteiths brewery that last 5 or 10 minutes were allotted for pouring your own beers. The guide started a DVD of Speights famous "Southern Man" TV spots and we had until the finish to have our go at the beer. The biggest seller, by far, is the gold medal brew. I'd had it a few times earlier and it always seemed to leave a strange aftertaste. I was hoping that the brewery experience would be different, but it still tasted strange. Their Pale Ale and their Pilsner, however, were most excellent!

Soon after the tour the Santa Claus parade kicked off. Good times for all!

The crowds assembled for the Santa Claus Parade. If my memory is correct, most parades in the states always seem to start in the morning around 10 or so. Not here, the festivities kicked off at a nice reasonable 3 pm, plenty of time to sleep in.

What is a Christmas parade without Sponge Bob

It's good to see commercialism stays out of community events

What the hell? A book mobile? Do they even have these in the states anymore? Probably not, considering some libraries are struggling to even stay open. Support your local library!!

Christmas and Rocket Ships, of course.

They don't look any less scary in person.

The man of the hour.

Hogwarts hostel (The one just behind the trees)

The last three days (four nights) I spent in Sumner after a 6 hour bus ride from Dunedin. Sumner is located right on the coast on the north side the Lyttleton harbor just 10 km or so from downtown Christchurch. The number 3 bus will get you there from the city bus exchange. I stayed at a nice hostel called Marine Backpackers for just $18 a night. I got there fairly late, around 8 pm but there was a certain quality to Sumner that instantly attracted my attention, namely the beach break less than 200 m from the hostel. Ok, so the waves are so-so and it is a beach break but I haven't been surfing in 6 weeks and I was seriously jonesing to get wet. Luck was on my side and the next day had some decent swell and a slight offshore wind so I was able to feed the beast for a couple of hours. Man it felt so great to be surfing again. If I keep on going on and on about it please don't hold it against me.

Wednesday the wave machine had some sort of malfunction so I took a nice hike around the bluff from town, most of the pictures I have of Sumner are from the hike. Apparently the mechanic made a house call because the waves were back on yesterday and I spent another 3 hours or so in the water. The crowd here was almost non-existent and there was hardly anyone on the outside waiting for the bigger sets, so I could pick off all of the nicer waves at my leisure. Great time! Maybe only chest high at the biggest but it didn't matter at all. It sort of reminded me of Bolinas when it's breaking right out front of the road. I was going to come into Christchurch last night but I decided to stay the night out there again in case things were looking good today. It was clean, but very small, plus I had to fulfill my blogging obligations :-) Here are some pictures of the area around Sumner.

Small but good

The bay from the bluff

Cool house with an awesome view

Blue skies and beautiful scenery

A little cove just next to Taylor's Mistake Beach.

I guess you can't really see it that well, but the house at center has a giant rock overhanging it. Really neat. This French guy that I was walking with kept on talking about how he'd never live on or at the base of a cliff for fear of a rock slide. I guess it's one of those risks you have to take.

We saw some people down there and went to investigate. They were fishing and gathering mussels.

I decided it was high time I tried my hand at rock climbing.

BAHHH!!

A little beach community at the end of the walk, Godley's Head.

As far as I could tell this was the only way down to the houses on the beach.

Looking back towards Christchurch and New Brighton. We had come around that bluff on the left.

The track ended at a car park...at the end of a long road. Luckily for us, there were some people coming up to their car just as we arrived and they gave us a lift back into Sumner. Here's a view of Sumner from the road above town.

Yesterday morning I took a couple pictures while waiting for the waves to come up a little bit.

I forgot to mention, I met an American in Sumner named Matt who was just here for a few days to renew his Australian visa. He's currently living there with his girlfriend along the gold coast and surfs 2 or 3 times a day. Rough life. He mentioned a surfboad outfit back in the states called Cooperfish. It looks like they have some nice boards. http://www.cooperfishsurfboards.com/ Anyway, Matt told me that last year he was involved in a surf movie project called "Invasion from Planet C". It's a science fiction surf movie... http://www.invasionfromplanetc.com/. I'm pretty sure that's Matt in front with the white hat on. I guess there's a pretty killer laser beam while surfing scene. The trailer is supposed to be up within the week and the movie is supposed to be released sometime in January, so keep your eyes peeled! Matt's my space site http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=4787424

It looks like there are some still photos from the shoot while they were in New Zealand at this website http://good-times.webshots.com/album/481992287hajjWh.

They also shot on location in Pavones Costa Rica!!! Matt and I had some interesting conversation about where Pavones is headed. He's of the opinion that it's in for a rough time ahead.

So now I'm back in Christchurch for just one night and I'm flying up to Wellington tomorrow morning where I'll meet up with Justine and Erin, a couple of Kiwis that I met at Stuart Kelly's wedding a few years back. I guess I'm going to visit with some family tomorrow straight from the airport so it should be some good times.

One more pic from here in Christchurch of a cool concert that happened to be going on in the Cathedral square as I was walking from the bus to the hostel. I think these guys called themselves Black Market Art. Looked pretty young, but sounded really good. Sort of a Doors and Violent Femmes mix but more melodically interesting.

Until next time.