It's not lost on me that I'm writing this post one year after our NZ adventure. It's taken me a whole year to complete this series. Yeah, I'm slow. As we've remembered our trip via Google Photos pops this week, it's reminded me how much I treasure New Zealand... enough to troll residency info with the hope that there's a hidden clause specifically for long, lost non-relatives or just really awesome people like us who want to make a home there. Turns out NZ'ers are a choosy lot.
That's a wrap...
This post wraps up the chronicle of a wonderful adventure exploring the two splendid islands that make up New Zealand. We have one last long drive to finally see the friends we crossed the world to visit.Check out yesterday's reallly long drive to the Fjord here.
It's Monday, and we are looking at a six-hour drive from Queenstown to Christchurch through the heart of the South Island. Jayme is on course to get there, and of course, I still suffered from the #wemustseeallthethings neurotic completer/finisher complex.
We head out on Hwy 6 -- goodbye Queenstown -- turning north on Hwy 8 at the wee community of Cromwell, capital of stone fruit. Nope, not kidding. They even have a sculpture of very large fruit highlighting their town's welcome signage. Because they can. We make it two hours before I get antsy and have to snap pics of something beautiful. Just past Twizel (yep, Twizel), we stop to admire Lake Pukaki.
The lovely turquoise color of the water is caused by glacial flour, which is super fine rock particles from glacial erosion. I understand it is a gluten-free flour.
As we descend out of the Otago region and into Canterbury towards the East Coast, the weather turns rainy. We push on towards Christchurch.
I'm reduced to taking pics from the car window. Wait, are those sheep?! In case you missed it, sheep are a thing here.
Christchurch
Finally! We arrived mid-day, located our hotel and after a brief rest, hoofed it across Hagley Park to meet up with our friends.
It was a great afternoon and evening, seeing the city from their point-of-view. What struck me most about Christchurch is the resiliency of the citizens and the love Jeremy and Matt conveyed for their city when they showed us sites that had been destroyed by the earthquake of 2011 that shook their world, and were in the process of being re-built. There are still many buildings in crumbles, but the hustle and bustle of the city was apparent.
Important to note here:
- Shorts in blustery spring is a thing
- Scooter, scooters everywhere
- Every downtown is cute
Oh, and
- Jeremy and I do not selfie well...
The destruction caused by the earthquake was particularly apparent seeing Christchurch Cathedral. One portion of the church is lovely and intact. The other side, rubble.
Debate even between Matt and Jeremy was that the church represented dated, conservative views, so we should let it go. But it was a central and grounding building rooted firmly in Christchurch's history, so it should be preserved. I get both points-of-view. According to Wikipedia, design and stabilization work has begun in 2019, so we'll see. Apparently the cost will be astronomical.
A wander through the lovely Christchurch Botanic Gardens was on the sightseeing tour. It's funny how when you're showing your hometown to visitors, you take them to places you don't usually go. Botanic gardens typically fall into that category. We wandered around, we conversed, it was great.
Botanic gardens can be tiring, so we needed a dinner chaser. Vegan nachos at C1 Espresso. Yes, thank you.
A neat outcome of earthquake resiliency is that business owners in Christchurch are re-purposing old buildings, such as CI Espresso in an old post office. They deliver food to your table via pneumatic tubes, like you used to use at the bank drive-thru. They distinguished the women's and men's rooms with Leia and Stormtrooper action figures. 50 points for ok nachos. 100 points for well representing #nerdlife.
TranzAlpine Train
On Tuesday, Jeremy bought tickets for the four of us to take the TranzAlpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth. The train transverses the island from east to west in about five hours -- across the Canterbury Plains up into the Southern Alps and across to the West Coast. Another one of those things many NZers hadn't done, including Matt. New adventures all around!
Sights were lovely, as they are. It was cloudy, so we didn't get the magnificent backdrop of soaring peaks, but we didn't mind. I am entranced by any New Zealand landscape.It was the visiting that was most fun, anyways.
Arthur's Pass is the mid-point on the line. There's not much about, other than old industrial equipment and a few very poor shanties. But it does offer a nice stop to stretch your legs.
It was remarkable to see the foliage change from the eastern side of the Alps to the western side. The west receives more rainfall and was definitely more tropical. Not less lovely, just more tropical.
And ahhhhh, we're back to the West Coast, which is where God has deemed we will live one day.
We spent the evening at Jeremy and Matt's place, keeping it real with take out and RuPaul's Drag Race. We're in our room and tucked into bed by 9:30pm. It was a good day.
The Last Day
It's the final day of this adventure before traveling begins. And we begin it with a bang by sleeping in!Today, we shop. I'd decided we hadn't secured enough souvenirs, so it was shopping day. Jayme helped by being uber grumpy. We found a mall. Their malls are defunct just like many of ours, and we found diddly squat. We headed back into city center, finally found a parking spot and head into shopping. Jeremy and Matt meet us there for lunch, and then we drive out to a harbor town, Lyttelton. It's rainy but we make the best of it and find a cute stretch of shops to explore.
A nice dinner with Jeremy tops off the evening. Hard to believe we are homeward bound tomorrow.
Heading Home
All good things must come to an end. But not just yet. There are still a few hours to hang out. After check out and errands... at Countdown, I cajole Jayme into hanging out at Hagley Park for a bit. He wanted to head to the airport at 11am for a 5pm flight. No. Nope. Not sitting for that many hours at the airport. I spent our last $20NZD on a salad at the botanic garden's cafe, and we wandered through the greenhouse. The day was lovely one, and while I was ready to be home, I could have continued exploring this extraordinary island.
Have we talked about the trees in NZ? If not, we should, they are amazing, as you can see.
Finally, Jayme can stand it no longer, and we head to the airport. Fine, let's turn in the car early to avoid another day's fees. And we scored an earlier flight to Auckland, which just meant sitting in the international terminal for hours. But that's ok, they had food and shopping.
CHC ➔ AUK ➔ SFO ➔ DFW ⬥ November 29, 2018, ~1:00pm (scheduled 5:00pm) arriving November 29, 2018 @ 6:38pm. Yes, Friends, we traveled for 24 hours. It was long, but the trip was so worth it. We wizened up from the flight to NZ, and purchased bulkhead seats, making the longest stretch more bearable on the legs.
We were late leaving Auckland, which put us late for our connector in San Francisco, which then meant we were on an American flight vs <other un-named US airline>, which meant collecting our bags and changing terminals, which meant going back through security while we are tired and jet lagged. Adventures, indeed.
You know what makes your house look really good? Being away for three weeks. Hello Dallas.
But for three weeks, we were in freakin' New Zealand! And it was grand.
If you're just joining the series, catch episode #1 here.
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