Timaru, New Zealand

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Fyi, we didn’t have wireless internet last night so I wrote the blog entry for Sunday in Microsoft Word and saved it.

Today we packed up all of our stuff and I made my mom help me search the room thoroughly (about 12 times) for anything we were leaving behind. That’s always a worry of mine.

Afterwards, I drove us to the Cathedral Square and mom went into the Christchurch Cathedral for service and I went into Starbucks. Now, before you all start frowning upon this, know that I did this so that I could talk to my dad/Kathy/Riley through webcams. Mom said the service was beautiful…a little different from our services like when they carry the cross by the people don’t bow down but it was similar. I was really glad to be able to see/talk to my dad. Without my friend Kathy, none of the communication between us and dad would be possible. THANK YOU KATHY!!!!!!!!

Afterwards I drove us out of Christchurch and towards Akaroa. The drive was gorgeous! It was VERY hilly…actually that’s an understatement because we were climbing up and down old volcanoes…and the roads wound back and forth, sometimes with 90 degree curves!! They were also very steep and there were no railings. This combined with me driving instead of me mum (did that on purpose…) and being on the left side of the road made my mom throw a fit. She refused to drive through those parts though and once the road straightened out and flattened out, she tried driving for the first time on the left and did well. We arrived at Akaroa and there were a few shops and cafes and dolphin tours, but it was mostly just a quaint town on the coast and the trip out there was for the scenery on the way and back from the city. We drove back and headed towards Dunedin.

We ate dinner at a small-town family restaurant called Number 1 South Restaurant. It was a very odd restaurant…it almost seemed like it was a community center which was converted into a restaurant on the weekends or something. The restaurant was one large carpeted room with square tables and very bright lights. There was a bar in the corner and a desk at the front. You decide what you want and then walk up to the desk to order. There was also a separate room that had a 15-20ft long chalkboard in it and another room that had a ball-pool in it (like the ones at Chuck E Cheese’s!) Very odd.

When we left the restaurant it was dark (around 6PM) and FOGGY…incredibly foggy. I continued to drive us towards Dunedin and we decided the next B&B we saw we would stop at since there’s no point in driving in the dark. The whole point of the trip is to SEE stuff and you can’t very well do that after sun-down. 😊

We made it to a town called Timaru and found a B&B called Elizabeth Street B&B. The lady was very sweet and gave my mom and I each our own room for the price of one!! SCORE!

As we were heading in, we noticed our license plate number.
ERK 666

Now instead of hearing, “Damn Yankee drivers!” it’s going to be, “Damn Yankee Satanic drivers!”

Ashley

PS We got to Timaru when it was dark and we left in the morning, so I only got 2 pictures of it and that was in the bathroom of our B&B!! haha

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Photos

Timaru, NZ
This was staring at me when I was about to take a shower...
creepyyyyy

Timaru, NZ
This was the cool shower that only had a back wall and the rest was a pull around curtain.

Comments

[Mona]

Great job Ashley! I'm loving all of it. Keep up the good work. Your pictures are beautiful. Nancy, I hope you are feeling better.