Friday January 31, 2025

I went for a walk early this morning to avoid the crowds.  The light was gorgeous and Lake Tekapo was flat calm.  I got some great photos.

The Church of the Good Shepherd

A monument to the collie dog, without whom "the grazing of this mountain country would have been impossible".

After insisting to the front desk clerk that we really didn't have internet (I don't think she believed us because "no one else in our building had complained") she offered us a free breakfast.  We had already eaten in our room so declined.  Nothing else was offered, so we went on our way, again at around 9:20 am.

We took a different route than our itinerary suggested.  We headed southwest to Lake Pulaki.  At the other end of the lake is Mount Cook, New Zealand's tallest mountain.  I should give its Maori name, which is Aoraki.  You see the Maori language every once in while, not on every sign, but it's there.  I've been watching the Maori channel on TV which is showing the 2024 haka competitions.  Very cool mixture of choir, dance, storytelling and threatening.

Our Yaris

The open road

The hall in Weston, population about 1,100

Katiki Beach

We got to Dunedin mid-afternoon.  These 2 murals can be seen from the hotel car park.

Downtown Dunedin reminds me of Nanaimo a bit.  Some run down buildings, posters papered on the walls, quirky shops, boarded up buildings, older architecture, although Dunedin has way more than Nanaimo.  The biggest difference - no homeless, and I've only seen a couple of people who may or may not have had addition issues at some point in their lives.

I woke up with a scratchy throat, so am downing vitamin C with echinacea to try to head it off.  Fingers crossed!

Thursday January 30, 2025

We got up and headed to the gym around 6:30.  We are still on BC time, going to bed around 9 (midnight at home) and getting up around 5 (8 am at home).  We had the best porridge ever at the hotel restaurant, with fresh fruit, yogurt and granola on top.  We got on the road at about 9:20 and headed west on a secondary highway.  The speed limit is 100 km/hr (I think that's the maximum everywhere in the country).  We travelled through Canterbury which is farm country.  It's very flat and every field is divided by what I thought were trees from the air but seen from ground level we can see that they are hedges.  These hedges are 15, 20, 30 feet high and a lot of them are trimmed into perfect rectangles.

We saw a few horses, a lot of cattle and hundreds of sheep, along with fields of corn, wheat and other crops.  Everything is very lush and green.  After a while we came to rolling hills.  We took the time to stop at a rest area and just enjoyed and took in the sights.  Next we stopped at the Rakaia Gorge and crossed the one lane bridge which was built in 1882.

The road got a little windy (curvy), but nothing like what we are used to.  We travelled on to Staveley where we had lunch at a cute store and café - well, the only store and café.  There were a couple of signs across the road that told a bit of the area history.  We walked up the road to the old church which is very picturesque.

We took another break in Fairlie where we picked up milk and cookies at a grocery store.  There were a lot of tourists in town so we had a quick snack and left.

We drove on and got to Lake Tekapo around 2:30.  We checked into our hotel right across the road from the lake.  We have a gorgeous view of the little chapel on a point.  There are lots of tour busses, this is a very popular stop for the Chinese tourists, of which there are many.  It had warmed up to shorts weather, so we got changed and took a walk across the bridge to the chapel.  It was very busy so we thought we'd go back in the evening, but by 8 we were exhausted and in bed by 9 again.  This place is a dark sky reserve and I was hoping to see the stars tonight, but sunset is 9:30 so it didn't happen.

The lake is blue-green due to the rock flour in the water, which we see often in the Rockies.

By the way, my hair is channeling Monica Geller in Barbados.  I left my hair care products at home, thinking I would buy travel sized things when I got here.  I got the grossest hair spray but that's all I could find.

Unfortunately we could not get the Wi-Fi in our room, so I could not post to my blog.

Wednesday January 29, 2025

We had a really great sleep, got up around 6, headed to the gym then had breakfast.  Mid-morning we walked to the Northlands Shopping Centre, about 5.5 kilometers away.  The weather was quite pleasant although very windy.  We had lunch and wandered through the shops, picked up a soft-sided cooler and some ice packs, along with some fruit, crackers and cheese for the road.  By the time we were ready to head back mid-afternoon it had warmed up to 23 degrees, so we decided to take the bus back to the hotel.  We were warned that the atmosphere is thinner this far south, so we wanted to avoid the sun and heat.  We worked on speech and my blog, had dinner and went to bed early again.

I didn't take any photos today.  I will say the neighbourhoods we walked through were neat and tidy for the most part with pretty gardens.  All the houses are either brick or concrete blocks.

We have to be careful as there are very few zebra crossings (crosswalks).  There are little islands where you can go halfway across then wait for the other side to clear before continuing on.  Absolutely no one will stop for you though, whereas they will if it's a zebra.

We have decided that we will do touristy things in this area at the end of our trip when we have four days in Christchurch to see the sights.  Today was just relax and get ready for the road trip.  Tomorrow we drive 250 kilometers to Lake Tekapo.

Tuesday January 28, 2025

You may have noticed that I skipped a day.  That is because we lost Monday completely and landed on Tuesday.  New Zealand is only three hours time difference but one whole day ahead, so we will live the same day twice on our return trip to make up for it.

First sight of land.

Fourteen hours after taking off we landed in Auckland where it was 22 degrees and muggy.  We had to pick up our suitcase as we were switching from Air Canada to Air New Zealand.  Asked for help and was told to check in the bag at the bag drop, but the tag wouldn't scan.  Asked for help and was told we had to go to the bag drop at the domestic terminal.  We chose to walk the 1.2 kilometers.  Got there, asked for help and was told to scan the tag at the bag drop.  Tag wouldn't scan, asked for help and was told to go to the desk to get a new tag printed.  Every time I asked for help I had them look at the tag we had, but still got the wrong information.  Sigh.  Had some lunch then boarded our 2:00 flight to Christchurch.  Which left late, probably by 1/2 hour but I don't even remember noting the time.  Below are the Canterbury Plains.

When we landed in Christchurch we picked up our car (a Toyota Yaris hybrid, a bit of a roomier upgrade than what we had booked).  They gave us the GPS we requested for free, since it is not completely up-to-date.  Got out to the car, loaded everything in, took some time to get used to the right-hand drive, then off to the hotel.  Brad was very encouraging, I was very nervous, but I didn't hit anything or take any wrong turns (it was only 1.9 kilometers).  I did, however, turn on the wipers every time I had to turn, due to the turn signal being on the right hand side of the steering column.  Finally settled in our hotel at 5 pm, 31 hours after leaving Diane's in Kamloops.  We showered, had dinner and were in bed before 9:00.

The courtyard of our hotel.

Sunday January 26, 2025

It's time to update the travel blog!  It's so exciting to be on another big trip.  This one is very different in a lot of ways - post-covid I find that I am much more aware of distancing and sanitizing; I am the lead on all communication now; and we are older and more appreciative of taking the time to just relax and recharge.

We left home on January 25th and drove to Kamloops.  We spent the night at Brad's sister's place and had a nice visit.  She drove us to the airport the next day where we caught a 3:00 flight to Vancouver (delayed by 1/2 hour - do they ever leave on time now?).  Then lots of time in the YVR airport, which I never mind.  I bought my traditional books - I always by one at YVR but got two this time - we had dinner and just chilled until we had to board our 11:45 pm flight.  Once we were on the plane we ended up being delayed for an hour.  The catering truck broke down right next to the plane so we couldn't be backed out from the terminal.  When it was finally moved we had to go to get de-iced and finally took off at 12:45 am.  When we reached cruising altitude we were served dinner, which I was not expecting at 1:30 in the morning.  I have difficulty sleeping on planes and this was no exception.