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!