A chilly day

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Breakfast

We woke up and had a lazy start to the day. The apartment is quite spacious and has two bedrooms with TV's, so the children occupied themselves rather than disagreeing!

Christchurch centre

We had breakfast of some sort of NZ cereal bought at a convenience store - which made a change from the restaurant breakfast. After that, we walked down to Cathedral square in the centre of Christchurch. It wasn't raining but was clear it had been earlier and the sky was overcast - it even smelled like England!
We were planning to go to the Antarctic experience at the airport, which has a shuttle bus to take you, but as we were early we decided to look at the cathedral and climbed the spire to see the views.

Antarctic experience

After that we boarded the bus for the trip down to the experience.
After entering the experience we saw various displays of the Antarctic. Then we came to the cold room. Here you had to put on over shoes (to protect your own and to keep the snow clean). They also issued thick coats and then you could go into the room which was kept at -8C and full of snow and ice. They had a slide made of solid ice and an igloo to shelter in. Every so often a storm would sweep though, and the wind would pick up to 24 mph, and the wind chill drop the temperature to -23C. It was very chilly - our shoe laces froze!

Then we got out of the room and warmed up - they had a heated handrail to help you get warm again.
We took off our borrowed coats and shoes and went to see some penguins and some other displays. Then, after some lunch, we went onto a Haagland ride. This is the vehicle they use in the Antarctic to get around. They move quite fast, have tracks so can cross chasms, and they also float so they can go in water.
The ride was quite exciting, we went up and down very steep slopes and got thrown around a lot. Then we splashed into a 3m deep pool and drove across that, with the water lapping up to the windows.
It was so good, we did it all again, both the cold room blizzard and the Haagland ride.

The experience is right next to the main departure base for the US and NZ Antarctic expeditions, including the departure room, and polar clothing stores.

Then, back on the bus to have a cup of coffee and then pick up our hire car for the next part of the journey.

Tomorrow we drive north to Nelson to meet our Cousins, so will probably be off the air for a few days, but we'll be back!

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Photos

The ice slide
Very cold, and wet trousers if you weren't careful, that then froze!

Comments

[A.Audrey]

How chilly
Very chilly reading ... am sitting in bed reading this and am about to snuggle down at the very thought of all those blizzards !! Have a great time with P etc , we look forward to more news. Lots of love and take care. xxxx A and T

[Sue Morris]

fellow traveller
Hello all! Just back from exhausting sightseeing trip to Paris. Hope you pacing yourself on this big adventure. Loved the photos of your blizzard experience. Have great time with relatives and speak again soon. Love GS PS Caleb had hamster for birthday which promptly died! Replacement now installed in amazing hamster lodgings contraption.

[lu lu and jess]

snowing
Was it snowing there looks like it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!