Day 76 - Christchurch

After our extended, illness induced blogging outtage we're back into the swing of things again. After our lightning, 1800km blitz around the South Island, we arrived in Christchurch last night after a 4 hour slog from Dunedin. Sadly, the drive up was nowhere near as interesting as the drive down the other side so we were both glad to get to a warm hostel at 7pm and make an enormous spagbol for tea.

After staying up late to call home and rearrange our US car rental, we planned our US treat - skiing in Lake Tahoe for 4 days from next Sunday! This gives us time to drive around the West Coast for a few days, see the sights etc before heading into the mountains for the powder. The conditions aren't fantastic but there's enough to keep even a novice skier (and experts like Em) interested. I think I'm correct in saying that we cannot bloody wait to get there!

Got up especially early today to
a) do the washing
b) get a coffee in Starbucks
c) go to Christchurch Cathedral for a service.

We weren't disappointed and enjoyed Choral Eucharist NZ-style (complete with Maori) while the better-than-average choir sang the Byrd 4 part mass. Still, it was a nice way to start our christmas festivities. Christchurch is a quaint (apologies for that word but it's the most apt) little place surrounded by the Canterbury plains and the Southern Alps - some of the pictures we have of the landscape are the most breathtaking I've ever seen. This place has everything, mountains, sea, lakes, volcanoes and more gondolas than you can shake a stick at. No wonder nearly every other person appears to be riding a bike or running up the nearest steep hill. I predict NZers will soon be taking over the world, if only because they can go for days without any sleep....

So we say goodbye to our trusty Daihatsu Charade tomorrow and catch a flight back to Auckland before we fly on to Fiji and the US on Tuesday. The camping gear we bought has sadly gone unused thanks to the unseasonally chilly weather but we hope to get a refund for most of it and donate the rest to a needy hostel-inhabitant.

Our time in NZ has been fantastic and was only marred by the illness at the start - that's now long forgotten and we'll take away only memories of beautiful landscapes and friendly people.
Next stop Fiji (for 5 hours) then back to reality in LA - Hollywood here we come.

:)