Blogs from Timaru, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Thursday 12/2/15 Timaru to Christchurch Airport and home. Breakfast looking out over the garden as the hills appeared out of the early morning mist and then driving along the longest straightest road to the airport at Christchurch a fitting last day to our holiday. Dropped the car off with 5 mins to spare, I guess they may not be that strict about the exact timing but it was good to get it done. Free shuttle to the airport and the homeward journey really feels like it's started now. Air New Zealand, like quite a lot of the rest of the country, are cashing in on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit but mostly quite tastefully or amusingly. The safety film on the flight was a video done by the hobbit cast and some of their ... read more

Geo: -44.3968, 171.25Today was a slow, lazy, unambitious day in Timaru. We cancelled our excursion, as the Botanical Gardens just didn't sound that motivating after a long day of 4x4's and jet boats.Timaru is close to midway between Christchurch and Dunedin and is thought to have been a stop off point for the Maori traveling down the east coast of NZ in the 1400's. Timaru is an agricultural service centre of approximately 30,000 people and was constructed on rolling hills created by lava flows from the extinct Mt Horrible volcano and the result is streets undulate; a clear contrast with the flat landscape of the Canterbury Plains to the north. This volcanic rock is used for the construction of local "bluestone" (grey or olivine basalt) buildings such as the Dunedin Railway Station.We walked into town, had ... read more

We watched tele this morning and were sickened by the events in America, so many questions and few answers. Our thought are with those parents today no one should experience what they are going through and can only try to imagine how they might be feeling. It is such a beautiful day here and this reminds us that we must cherish each day. Steve is doing his best to cheer me up, I saw a road on the map and said we should take it, good job we didn't it was a railway line! Try to imagine Devon with no cars, no cream teas and hot sunshine and that is where we are, travelling up from Dunedin to Timaru. There are few villages on the way and the roadside has bright pink Livingstone Daisy's lots of ... read more

We got away from Dunedin by 09:00 driving up highway 1 to Timaru. And arrived at the “top-ten” site in Timaru at about 13:30. We had a walk to the beach and walked on further into the town centre. We stop for a drink overlooking the beach, and then walked back to the Camper Site. We sat outside the van and read, it was a beautiful sunny day, the weather forecast said 24 degrees and it must have been about that. We ate at the motor van, I cooked a mushroom omelette Not much else to report for today. All the exciting and interesting excursion have come to an end. thoughts are turning to the journey home. ... read more

Day 8: 14-2-10 Dropped off Will in Dunedin and continued on our way. Around midday we stopped in Timeru, a charming with Mayberry-esque residents. Just happened to come across a flower show and ended up with Valentines bouquet that would make a florist proud. Camper-van lesson number 8: School is the place where children go to study. University is where big kids go. After minutes of trying to explain to an older women that I was going to school in Australia and having her repeatedly ask what subjects I was teaching kids, it finally dawned on me...words have different meanings in different countries.... read more