Day 3 Christchurch to Wanaka

Day 3 started with a trip to the Vodafone shop, to get Melissa's phone fixed. It turned out that she had been given a duplicate number, hence why it didn't work. A new Sim and we were off on our road trip to Wanaka at 9:30am. 

South Island is beautiful as usual. It is drier than last trip, so not quite as emerald green.

The Alpine areas of mountain ranges, deep rivers, crystal blue lakes, meadows and forests was very pleasant to the eye. We stopped for lunch at Lake Tekapo and revisited some of the scenery from 2010.

Eventually we arrived at Wanaka airport in time for Alan's joy flight. Following the flight we went Wanaka's theatre to watch "spectre". A typical Bond film, were a Thousand bullets fly and he is untouched.

Wanaka is such beautiful place nestled between forested mountains on the banks of crystal blue lake.

Our accomodation is pleasant and comfortable, so hopefully we will get a great sleep tonight. The night sky is so clean and clear, we watch several satellites pass by in the night sky.

Day 2 Christchurch- seeing the sights again

8:20am Getting ready for a trip into Christchurch's CBD area. We are meeting our friends and Peter's family in the new container shopping area. I suspect we will be saddened by the loss of Christchurch's past.

Today is wet and cool, which we are told is normal for Christchurch's late spring. 

We travelled into CBD, and found a park. Of course, we were late, keeping both our friends and family waiting. First stop was the container mall and coffee. Christchurch's new mall is made of shipping containers, a novel and safe idea. Every where we saw earthquake damage and rebuilding. The landscape was missing some 1500 buildings from our previous visit in 2010. 

The CBD has embraced street art in a big way. Almost every damaged building has a painting. Impressive!

We had the pleasure of as catching up with Marie (Cos' cousin) and husband Nick. Nick gave us a walking tour of the CBD and surrounding area. It was very insightful and far better than just wandering around the streets. 

We eventually visted the museum. Very impressive displays. Enjoyed the visit greatly.

After the museum, we went to the phone shops at Northlands Shopping centre. I'm beginning to hate phones, we have had nothing but bad luck with them. Melissa's NZ prepaid phone refuses to send texts so we will need to return to the shops for new sim. We even spent 30 minutes on Vodafone help line as well, no luck. Grrrr!

Eventually we returned to our accomodation for BBQ. The ten ten parks are great places.

Day 1 arrival in Christchurch

Our day started with a rush to the Brisbane International Airport, which started well as can be expected . We found our under cover park, after much stalking of new arrivals. Dragged ourselves through check-in, which went well. The Virgin staff are really great and very friendly. The security folks took their time processing us, which is fine given the current international scene. Charlotte had the privilege of being fully body scanned, then bomb scanned by the security staff. We made loading with 10 minutes to spare. Our friends had a speedy passage through checkin, security and customs which allowed them some time for coffee and breakfast. Unfortunately, we had no time to source food or drink so we were hungry boarding the aircraft. 

The flight went fast, with some very tasty sandwiches, filling out custom cards, and watching the inflight entertainment. 

Movement through Christchurch International went smoothly. We collected our hired car which was covered in dust and had damage to almost every panel on the vehicle. Our 2007 camary has seen much better days, as it runs rough and sounds worse. We may need to swap it for something more roadworthy before we leave Christchurch. 

Our accomodation (Top 10 Christchurch) was up to usual high standard. Very Nice. Once settled, we went to local shopping centre to get NZ Sim for the phone and some food. We caught up with Peter, Anja and family and returned to our accomodation. We tried a local pizza called Hell's Pizza, which was well priced and very nice. Sadly our exchange rate is not as good as our last trip.

Count down to New Zealand

3:00pm The countdown to our newest journey has begun. Thank you to our kind family member who will house sit on our property and look after our dog. J It is nice to know our house is safe.  Thank you.

Soon, Jacqueline will return from the coast and we will head down to Brisbane ready for our trip to Christchurch New Zealand! This time we are traveling with our dear friends and my brother’s family.  It promises to be an excellent trip. Cheers!

8:57pm After a quick trip to Brisbane, we arrived at our hotel (the ibis) safely. The room is very small, in good repair, clean and functional, but that is what we expected. No thrills and cheap for a sleep before a early start in the morning.