Booking Akaroa Trip & Hearts For Christchurch

Posted by & filed under Travel Country: New Zealand.

24/1/2012

Tuesday morning I went back into the i-site on Rolleston Avenue and booked the Akaroa trip. They also asked me if I wanted to do the Black Cat Harbour Tour, which was a two hour trip on a catamaran out into Akaroa bay to see Hector dolphins. I wasn’t sure whether I would do that or not and said I’d think about it. It was 69 NZD and if I was going to book it, then I’d have to go into the i-site a little earlier the next morning and pay for it then.

My tummy was rumbling and I needed to go for food. I saw on the Canterbury Museum brochure that they had a café upstairs which overlooks the Botanical Gardens, at treetop level, which sounded nice. So I decided to go there. There was a lovely view of the gardens from the window of the café and I had my lasagna and salad here. While I was eating, I spotted a very colourful wall downstairs and it was full of home made hearts of different colours.

After the earthquake there in February 2011, Evie Harris, from Napier, (an earthquake-hit city in New Zealand), began a project among the stitch-craft community, called Hearts for Christchurch, whose aim was to gather hearts for Christchurch to give moral support to the people who were going through hard times after the quake. Not only did they receive hearts from crafters in New Zealand, they also got hearts from stitching groups in Australia, Europe, North and South America and the Pacific. All in all, they gathered four thousand lovingly created hearts, which went on display in the Visitors Lounge of the Canterbury Museum. There were hearts in a huge range of colours from pink, to blue, to red, yellow, purple etc. It looked gorgeous on the walls.

On my way out, I thought I’d ask and see if they needed staff at the Museum. I got talking to a guy called Anthony, who seemed to be in charge of hiring personnel. I asked him if they had any job vacancies at the moment. I told him that I’d worked in face to face roles with customers for over twenty years and could speak good Dutch and French and had a huge passion for New Zealand. He said they were crying out for staff at the moment because of staff holidays etc and told me that they were looking for Visitor Hosts. He said that he liked what he heard about me so far and to send a cover letter and C.V. to him to apply for the position. I thought “Yes”, this sounds promising.