Writing from some internet lounge in Christchurch around 8:30 p.m. I set the alarm in my hotel room, and this morning as it turned on, since there are no windows in the room, the light above the bed turned on and gradually went brighter and brighter, and then the plasma tv turned on to the "wake up" channel, which basically featured soothing music and gorgeous scenery of Canterbury in New Zealand. It was like the freakin' Jetsons or something; I loved it.
I spent pretty much the whole day on a tour with Hassle Free Tours, and as me and another guy - Russell - from Sydney who was also staying at my hotel were waiting to depart on our 4WD shuttle, the driver couldn't get the car to start. So we sat there for about 20 minutes while Rex - our tour guide - was scraping some corrosion and doing whatever else to get the car to start. Russell pointed out the irony of "Hassle Free" on Rex's jacket.
Finally we had liftoff and we went to pick up everyone else going on the tour. Rex joked to everyone else that it was my fault that we were so late. Russell and Rex jokingly gave me the business about being from Texas/American throughout the day (Bush, Palin, the pronunciation of "glacier", etc) but it was all in good fun.
We drove through the Canterbury Plains and heaps of farms with sheep, cattle, alpacas, and deer. It was a somewhat cold and drizzly morning, so there were low-lying clouds that obscured the views of the snowy mountains. Rex said it was the wettest coldest May they've had. It was a rocky, gravelly road to get to Mount Potts (Edoras), and the clouds obscured the view JUST ENOUGH to prevent any really gorgeous pictures, although every now and then there was a sliver in the clouds where you could get an idea of what the whole landscape was like.
Rex shared lots of anecdotes about New Zealand and Lord of the Rings and quips about all the places he's been to, which was quite a lot: Singapore, Dubai, UAE, London, America, Kenya, etc. And he gets to choose which days out of the week he wants to work - it was really pretty amazing. He also popped in some LOTR dvd snippets on the tv monitors in the car. There were no other Americans on the tour; we were all from separate countries. I met this Canadian James, and I don't know if it's been because I've been hearing nothing but the kiwi accent 24/7, but I had the hardest time understanding what he was saying. I asked James how long he was in New Zealand, and he said, "I'm just doing a short trip - 3 weeks." I actually laughed out loud at his comment.
Even though the clouds obscured most of the mountains (Rex said how all the actors who had filmed at Edoras had marveled at the 360 degree view of mountains and he put out his arms and spun around in a circle to emphasize), you could still see how raw and untouched the landscape was. It was still pretty amazing, but of course sunny weather would have been much better! It was still pretty gorgeous. We couldn't get on top of Mount Potts because it had rained so much the past 10 days that the road that they use for the tour had been completely washed out. But what I could see was basically the same as in the films; huge sweeping flatlands where the glaciers had flattened the landscapes and surrounding mountains. The whole area was immense and very isolated - definitely no cell phone coverage there.
So we had our lunch (sandwich, orange juice, champagne, chocolate cake, coffee/tea/hot chocolate) at the shed and then made one last pass to see if the weather was any better. Unfortunately it's just a game of odds with the weather when you're here in New Zealand. But the tour was enjoyable; Rex was the typical talkative friendly South Islander and it's really cool to get out to the really middle-of-nowhere places in New Zealand.
Tomorrow I am heading on the bus to Mt Cook, and the weather forecast shows sunny skies, so fingers crossed! I'm only staying one night at the Hermitage Hotel. I caved and booked a "nice" hotel for once, but with the exchange rate being what it is and non-peak season, it wasn't expensive. There are several walks around there, depending on what the weather is like and how my legs are feeling tomorrow (very sore today still), so I haven't decided which ones to do yet. Not sure what kind of internet availability I'll have there, so I don't know if I'll be able to check in tomorrow; try not to be too sad, eh?
