The Grand Tour 2021 Comes to an End

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The last day of the Grand Tour was always planned to be a quiet one compared to the places we have been to over the past 3 weeks and 2 days. And the cold weather that arrived last night was probably going to mean that it would be an indoor day too.

Although our motel was on the corner of a busy intersection we weren’t troubled during the night with traffic noise. So it seems double glazing or some other noise reducing construction material had done the trick.

We were not due to fly home to Tauranga until just before 7pm tonight so have a few hours to fill in and it is just as well that we arranged to retain the rental car for another day as it would have been a miserable day going about the two appointments we have with the cold southerly and rain that was the weather we faced as we pulled the curtains and checked out the day.

First up today we had a visit with two of Gretchen’s cousins and their husbands who live in Christchurch and both live relatively close to the motel.

It is always a great experience meeting up with family you haven’t met in person for quite some time and we easily passed a couple of hours over morning tea and talking about families.

In the afternoon we headed back towards the motel for a lunchtime meeting with a couple of people I am distantly related to having made their acquaintance through Ancestry website where I have been building my family tree.

Again a couple of hours was easily passed away comparing notes over the discovery work that one puts in when building your family tree to the extent I have. The only disappointing thing was that I didn’t uncover a missing piece of the puzzle as to how my great grandmother(on my mother’s side0got herself from Ireland to New Zealand in the latter part of the 1800’s.To date I have not been able to trace her on any of the immigrant ships coming to New Zealand.

By the time we had finished talking and had lunch it was after 2pm and over half of the time we had from getting up this morning to when our flight is due to depart had passed.

The weather had brightened a bit and the rain had stopped but it was still chilly in the low teens and a direct comparison on the warmth of yesterday afternoon before the southerly arrived.

We took a drive out to Sumner, a seaside suburb on the eastern side of the city.

The last time we had been out that way had been on a bus a few years ago and it had been very sobering to see the effects on some of the hilltop houses after the earthquakes the city had experienced.

One of the things we also recalled from that bus ride to Sumner and back to the city was the undulating state of the roadway which had now been repaired giving a ride that you meant you didn’t feel like you were on a rollercoaster.

Another thing evident was the move of a school just before Sumner where the hillside had partially collapsed and was continuing to threaten the buildings to such an extent that the school couldn’t be used in case of another earthquake resulting in the hillside giving way. A new school had been built closer to the beach and although it seemed the obvious thing to do there had been considerable delay in getting the project finished and enabling the school children to all be together again in a safe environment.

On the way to the airport to give back our rental car we diverted into the city to see how the restoration of the Christchurch Cathedral was progressing. This is another project that has taken far too long to sort out with part of the Anglican hierarchy not wanting the iconic but badly damaged cathedral to be rebuilt while those in favour of a rebuild holding out against the bishop. Needless to say when the bishop was defeated in her efforts not to rebuild the cathedral she resigned from her post.

Unfortunately trying to find a car park anywhere near close to the cathedral wasn’t possible and we flagged the idea of taking a walk to see the progress. Possibly by the time we come south again the rebuild might have been completed.

The drive to Christchurch Airport was very straight forward even at a time when most of the traffic heading out to the west of the city was workers heading home for the day. In most other cities in NZ our drive would have been a lot slower but Christchurch streets seem to cope better with rush hour traffic.

The person from the rental car company expressed surprise at the kilometres we had clocked up in the 23 days we had rented the Corolla and at 3200km it was the highest he had seen for the time we had had the car. And that included a couple of full days when it was parked up at Invercargill Airport when we were over on Stewart Island.

We had plenty of time for people watching before our flight to Tauranga was called.

The aeroplane we thought we would be returning to Tauranga on had been changed to a larger ATR and the time taken to get back to Tauranga was a bit shorter than expected with a following wind. Last evening’s southerly that had arrived in Christchurch as we finished dinner was now clearing the North Island although there was a light shower of rain as I headed over to the long term car park to find the Nissan to take us home.

The Grand Tour had actually been more extensive than we had planned when we had set out just over 3 weeks ago but we had ticked off almost all the places we had wanted to see and visit (except Bendigo, Central Otago due to road closure) and had that feeling, now that we were home, that this holiday had been a real success and fully worthwhile.

Where to next?

Well we guess that depends on COVID19 in many respects, not the least whether the vaccination campaign happening all around the world sees this pandemic put in its place and freedom of travel to wherever you want to go becomes a reality again.

We will be back with another blog when it’s time to put on our travelling gear again soon. We will let you know when that is and we hope you have enjoyed ‘travelling with us ‘through the written word.

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