New Zealand Coastal Train To Christchurch & Ken's For Holidaze 24Dec22-25Dec22

Day 11 Travel Day To CHC & Meetup With Ken

Kala & I headed through Blenheim to the train station to ride the NZ Coastal to Christchurch. Fortunately we had a great day for the ride so we could see most of the sights along the east coast of the South Island. The Blenheim pics are from the Sydney square across from our lodging and @ the tree in the lobby. We stopped at CBD to grab sammies for the train ride - Bro Brown is right, there are many very good bakeries and cafes in NZ.

Southbound on NZ Coastal to Christchurch. Saw lots of the Pacific, some 3KM mountains, sheep of course, some mountain drainage to the sea, vineyard with warming fans, and more.

We Ubered over to Ken's apartment (actually Alan's, who is Ken's NZ "sister's,") partner's apartment and nearly immediately commenced partying with the Hudson kids, Ken, and Gill & Alan on Christmas Eve ~ many good hazy IPAs and good nosh.

Day 12 Merry Xmas To All

We headed over to Cole Hudson's place to say hi. He's Gill's ex and father of the kid's, Curtis & Chelsea. When discussing music and audio the day prior with Curtis I learned of his audiophile passions; we knew much of the same stuff and used some similar techniques to equalize our rooms and systems. Today I was able to audit his high end system which included some transmission line speakers, an Advent SS amp, a giant DIY 6000 watt sub, miniDSP gear and an XBox... of course he questioned my choices of low wattage, zero feedback and tubes... whatev'.

We headed into Christchurch to walk off the night prior and expected to find nothing open, and nothing was. CCH is a rebuilt city after 2010 and 2011 earthquakes... at least one street was fully spared. One more recent aspect is a vibrant street art scene supported by town administration. Very cool. Remembrance Bridge is about the lives lost inthe earthquakes of '10-'11.