Auckland to ChristChurch

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Kia Ora! Well, here we are 3 days into our Kiwi adventure. First off, the flight wasn’t too bad, as we both were able to get some sleep, but the after-effects of traveling 12+ hours are a little tough. We got into Auckland and checked into our hotel in the Parnell area around 6 in the morning. We spent the day walking around town, getting to know the lay of the land, and doing everything we could to stay awake, at least until 8:30. We spent some time up at the Museum, and took in a performance of Maori dance and ritual that was quite moving. I’ll tell you though, once 8:30 hit, we were both sound asleep and slept until 7 the next morning.

Saturday we took the Fuller’s Ferry out to Rangitoto Island, a 600 year old volcano, and hiked up to the top. Amazing views of the bay and the city, a full 360 degrees, and we lucked out and had an amazingly calm day. The rest of the day we focused on trying to get around Auckland a bit, but between our lack of big city smarts and still feeling a bit punchy, we got to a point pretty quickly where we couldn’t wait to head off for the South Island. However, we must say that people who live here in NZ are maybe the friendliest, most helpful people we have ever met…everyone is willing to go out of their way to help you have the best time you can.

Thankfully we made it to the South Island today. Christchurch was what we expected-in large areas of the city you couldn’t tell there had just been a major earthquake, and then there would be street closures that even the shuttle driver we had wasn’t aware of. We got our funky, Escape Van and headed South. This is our first time driving on the left side of the road, and Pete did all of the driving today, about 300 km to Lake Takepo. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, although once towards the end of the day I found myself on auto-pilot and a car coming at me on the wrong side!

Once we got out of Christchurch, the scenery has been incredible. It was a beautiful, warm sunny late summer day, and the further south we went, the closer to the western mountains we got. Tonight they are with reach, so we are planning on going up to Mt Cook, the largest mountain on the islands. We are hoping for clear skies tonight, as the lake we are camping on is reputed to have the clearest air in the Southern Hemisphere…awesome stargazing opportunity!

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Photos

The Rose Garden in Parnell
And our hotel, the Kingsgate Parnell

Comments

[Diane]

Great to hear from you!
Hi Honeys, Glad to hear from you and see the photos! Good job... looking forward to your next blog. Have fun, xoxo diane