Our last day

We had a lovely last day in New Zealand. Walked downtown to the bus depot to meet Pam and then we all hopped on a bus for Lyttelton, (on the other side of Port Hills and the harbour for Christchurch) and then a water taxi for Diamond Harbour which is just across Lyttleton Harbour about 10 minutes by boat. 

As you can see the clouds were very low as they had been last Friday when we did the hike with our group at Port Hills, which you can't see today either.

Once we arrived on the other side it was like magic: blue sky, sunshine and very warm.

A bit of fog remaining.

Isn't the water an incredible colour?

We had coffee in one café, then over to "The Three Boys" for lunch. A very relaxing day with only enough walking to get us there and back again!

A bottle of New Zealand Savignon Blanc to celebrate lunch!

I had a nummy salad with bacon while the others had salmon sandwiches. I love how the kiwis have bacon on everything!  My kind of place. Mmmmmmm

We went back home via boat, bus and walking to Brockworth Cottage to spend our last evening. Dinner was eating up all the leftovers, lots of Brie cheese and olives.

The next morning, Thursday, our travel day, we were all organized to leave by 10am when the owner arrived to say hello and make sure we had enjoyed his place. He was telling us that this cottage was originally a train cottage for the train employees. He has owned the place for nine years.

Wendy had organized the Super Shuttle van to pick us up at the cottage and drive us to the airport, the best deal in town we decided. Our flight to Auckland was not until 4 but we had to be out of our cottage at 10 so we had a plan. Judy wanted to sit and read so we left her in a comfy chair at the airport after we all had coffee together and Wendy and I headed over to "Experience Antarctica". Just a few minutes walk from the terminal and lovely and cool. We had an interesting hour and half. The best part was seeing the Little Blue penguins. We had not met any on our travels in the South Island even though they hang out at a couple of the beaches we were at. Not when we were there though. Wrong season or something. Anyway it was great to see these cute little guys in their pool and enclosure. All of the 17 penguins here are disabled in some way so would not survive in the wild. One of them just won't swim so that is "awkward" for a penguin since they subsist on fish.  

Blue penguins are the world's smallest penguins.

Christchurch is the staging area for the resupply ships and airplanes for Antarctica and the bases down there. We saw the 4 US Hercules airplanes that are used by the Americans for their base. They land on skis there and wheels here. NZ is very involved with research in the Antarctic, and there is keen interest in that continent. No, that won't be our next trip, Winnipeg was cold enough; don't need to go any colder.

Our flights home were uneventful except for a bumpy ride over the Pacific. Sleep was minimal for me, more for the other two. Dinner was good. This last picture is for my brother David.

We departed at 4pm on Thursday. We landed in Vancouver at 1:00pm, Thursday - before we left Christchurch!  Figure that one out (I think we found that missing Thursday from when we left Jan 6).

Home again, home again jiggity jig!

Tuesday in Christchurch

Today we are all dragging our feet, must be time to go home. It's actually sunny and very warm so we are covered in sun cream. New Zealand has a hole in their ozone layer so the sun is particularly strong. Found that out the hard way on Sunday. It was cloudy and coolish so I had not bothered with the cream. During our walking tour the sun broke through and in a very short time I had a very pink strip above t-shirt neckline on the side facing the sun. Had my hat on so nothing else got any sun. Ouch!

We headed off downtown so Wendy could meet Pam and her husband Mark for coffee while Judy and I did some last minute shopping and browsing around the ReStart container shops. We had our coffee there before heading to the YMCA to meet up with Pam and Wendy to see the "street art" exhibition. It was in a warehouse attached to the Y, an interesting exhibition with all types of street art from grafitti to murals and everything in between.  Who knew these guys could be recognized artists and make a living doing this?

A street-art forest with bird song sounds. 

A number of panels of plexiglass with paint blobs on them look like just that.

But if you stand in exactly the right place at the end they all line up for this image. Clever.

The last room of art was giant aerosol cans painted up as a canvas.

Judy, Wendy and Pam.

Pam took us to another neat restaurant for lunch, The Boatshed on the River Avon. We watched kids and parents head off kayaking while we sat in the shade of the awnings.

The restaurant cat hardly moved while we were there to the point we wondered if he was dead, but no, we could see his chest rise and fall a bit.

Lunch was fun together and we had lots of great chat. Afterwards we headed back through the park and home while Pam went to catch her bus. We were ready to just put our feet up and do nothing.

One more day in Christchurch before we head home to Victoria.

Museum Day

Monday saw us walking through the park again - trying to find the most direct route to the Museum of Canterbury (the region Christchurch is in, like a province). We did get a little off on the wrong side of the river Avon and there are just 2 or 3 bridges so it took us maybe 20 minutes longer than we though it would. 

Once we got to the Botanic gardens we were all ready for a latte so we stopped at a cute little place between the duck ponds and the kids play area and wading pools called Duck Duck. We decided it was one of the best coffees we have had. We had fun watching a little guy about 2 yrs old chase gulls and ducks around trying to feed them some duck tucker (food).

We all spent about an hour and a half at the museum. It's free and lots of great dioramas of early Maori and white settler life. Then a street scene that we could wander through of early Christchurch, much like the one in the BC Museum and the Manitoba museum. I loved the toy store on the street because there was a tiny sewing machine, a replica of the one I bought in France in September. Cool!!

Christchurch was destined to be settled by the English gentry and not the convicts who were sent off from England, so it is suppose to be very much in the English style.

We headed off to follow up on one of Pam's suggestions for lunch and decided she has very good ideas! We went to the Hummingbird Cafe in a container at the Restart Mall.  Each of us had something avocado but each one quite different.

Below: Judy's avocado and bacon on a bagel

Middle: Wendy's smashed avocado on toast

Bottom: Marion's bacon and avocado on Rosti

Nummy!!

Upstairs in the cafe.

After lunch we headed across the street to our second museum, "Quake City". This museum is everything about the earthquakes over the years in Christchurch. It is a special exhibit of the Canterbury museum. It was very interesting and it included a seventy-five minute movie of a number of personal accounts by some residents who had been deeply affected by the two quakes. Very sobering and moving. It really made all three of us think about how Victoria would fare given the same circumstances which are totally out of anyone's control.

We headed home again to have showers and then out for dinner at a restaurant down at the end of our street, Trevinos, for a great pasta dinner. First pasta we have had in New Zealand. Super tired tonight so off to bed early. We all need to get home from our holiday to get some rest!!!