Christchurch

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Clay woke us up at 7am somehow. When he turned on the lights I was confused because I thought it was still the middle of the night! I guess I was tired.

We went down to breakfast about 8am. It was a bad sign when we had to wait as 3 elevators stopped at 6 and then filled up before going on down. We were just contemplating walking the stairs when an elevator came that was nearly empty. Two elevators are probably a little less than adequate for a 22 story building. Rendezvous Hotel is one of 3 new high rise hotel buildings that survived the 2011 earthquake. Anyway, from the luggage in the hall and the crowd in the lobby and at breakfast, it seemed that an Asian tour group was departing about 9am. The hotel's breakfast area won't seat 50 people, so you'd think when they have a busload departing that they'd assign them breakfast times instead of all of them arriving en masse. Maybe they did. Anyway, after so effort we did get seats and a little something to eat. They had a pancake dispenser and we both ended up eating pancakes since either no one else had noticed it off to the side at the end of the buffet line or no one else wanted pancakes. They ran out of most everything else while we were there. We enjoyed the pancakes but some bacon would have been nice with them. Anyway. We had to be outside for our 3 hour private car driver/guided tour at 9am. All of our tour vouchers here in Christchurch are with A2B Luxury Lines. All 3 are for car/drivers too. One was yesterday's pickup and hotel drop off. Tomorrow at 3pm we have a hotel pickup airport drop off at 3pm. But today we had a tour with Peter Cox. He was on time and professional. He did an excellent job and gave us lots of information about Christchurch past, present and future. He drove us up a hill for an overlook after walking us around the earthquake ruined cathedral. He drove us around and over that hill/mountain which had recently burned and we could smell it still. We arrived around the other side at Governor's Bay and Lyttleton. We got out and viewed the port operations there and then drove around the bustling little community. We drove through the Lyttleton tunnel to return through the Red Zone to Christchurch and the Rendezvous Hotel. It was the best done tour we've had since we arrived in New Zealand. After Peter dropped us off, we checked our map and headed next door to the tram ticket office that we'd seen yesterday evening.

We decided to buy a combo punt/tram ticket since we could use one today and one tomorrow. Since it was so nice today we went punting on the Avon today. The young lady at the ticket office offered to call and reserve our time. It was a little after noon so she suggested 1:30pm to give us time for a leisurely stroll. That was nice and it worked out well. We saved $5 by booking both. It was about $92NZD. We really enjoyed the punting. The punter talked about what we were seeing the entire time and we saw 2 native NZ duck species. The Avon where they punt runs through park land and the botanical garden so the plants were interesting as well. The Scaup duck we had first spotted diving and swimming in the lake at Queenstown so we were happy to learn about it and see a mom and 3 chicks up close. The chicks can dive within 3 days of hatching even with baby fuzz! The Paradise ducks I had seen from the coach on every day of our long drives, so again it was nice to see up close and learn about what it was.

After punting, we spent an hour or so walking in the Botanic Garden. It was something and if we'd realized we should have bought a 3 combined ticket to include the little green tram tour of the Botanic Gardens. Clay argued no since you could not stop and look at plants and trees and fountains and art more closely. We had a late lunch/early dinner meal at an Asian place called DUO across the street. It was really good and we were a little nervous after our inedible Asian meal last night.

As we started to walk back to the Rendezvous, Clay decided that we should have some NZ cash to get us through the next 24 hours to our departure. He Google mapped a walk on his phone and we walked for what felt like hours! It was a bad idea. After he paid $3 for the privilege of accessing his funds in the middle of a mall, we walked back out to see our hotel lined up across the far side of Christchurch what looked like 2 miles away. We walked and walked. Because of all the earthquake devastation/demolition and reconstruction it seems like every other block the sidewalk is closed so it seemed like an even longer walk. I grumbled A LOT. Clay wanted to go to Rollickin' Gelato on New Regent St. past our hotel. We had seen it last night with a long line. I grumbled some more. Then we got in there and they had a s'mores slice! OMG! I got one while Clay got a dark chocolate gelato cone. She asked me if I wanted whipped cream on it and I just stood there mouth breathing. She laughed and said maybe on the side. I snapped out of my amazed daze and agreed, yeah maybe okay on the side. It was delicious. Especially delicious with the whipping cream. Have we mentioned the amazing NZ dairy products? Yeah, might have. I wonder how they made that massive layer of toasted marshmallow. It was continuous. Slice by the way is a generic term for any kind of what we would call a bar cookie in the US. Anyway, the s'more slice saved Clay. I told him I could not have imagined anything that was going to make that long ATM trek and back worth it until I spied that stack of s'more slices under glass at $5 each. I shared with Clay! A dessert that will live on in memory.

We have to check out by 10am tomorrow. We plan to leave the luggage here while we go out on our tram tour. We have to be picked up for our ride to the airport at 3pm. We fly to Sydney at about 6:25pm for arrival in Sydney around 8pm. We are spending the night at the Rydges Sydney Airport and the next morning we board Oceania's Sirena for a month long Australia circumnavigation. It will be good to be in one bedroom for a month!

While we cannot recommend Kensington Tours or their local provider Pacific Destinations as the tour was just badly designed and overpriced in our opinion, we highly recommend a visit to New Zealand. It is a country of varied and beautiful landscapes. It has a short but fascinating history. It has Hobbiton!

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