Haz and I brought with us contrasting feelings to the airport for our morning flight to Christchurch; sad and heavy hearts – about leaving Sydney after 2 years and; excited – as we embark on our longest holiday trip ever. Expectedly, we packed too much (>50kg) and had to be charged for 2 extra kgs (@ AU$20/kg!) after the flight staff had given us a 'discount' – expensive start!
Before we landed at Christchurch, we were treated to amazing sights of the Southern Alps!
Picked up our car from Yourway (cheap rental rates..) and checked into Hotel Ibis at Christchurch CBD. Nice cozy room at affordable rates. Went straight out to check out the city area, fully utilizing the ‘Eyewitness Travel Guide – NZ’ given to me by Nasa as a farewell gift. It is definitely a great and useful gift as many of the attractions planned for the tour are based on recommendations in the book.
in front of the Christ Church Cathedral
The Bridge of Remembrance
We then bought grocery (ie. instant noodles, fruits, snacks, etc) from ‘New World’ supermarket; equivalent of Woolies/Coles/NTUC, to prepare for our 20-day trip on the road before retiring for the night. Cold and frosty weather forecasted for the next few days… Fingers crossed...
Day 2: 2/7 (Christchurch – Lake Tekapo)
We departed Christchurch early around 8:30am, stopping at Rakaia, a small farming settlement which claims to be ‘the salmon capital of NZ’, for a photo with a large fiberglass fish.
We drove down further, turning off at Geraldine for a coffee break, before traveling inland to reach the stunning Lake Tekapo at around 1:30pm. The remarkably blue and clear waters of the lake greeted us as we entered the town. We visited the Church of the Good Shepherd and took photos with the Collie Dog statue. It appeared that a storm would be descending on us as we wandered closer to the lake to take more photos as the wind just got stronger. The raindrops from the drizzle hit us hard on our faces – very painful!
We wanted to take an Air Safari’s flight over Mount Cook and the many glaciers of the Southern Alps but the bad weather denied us the opportunity! We checked into our hotel room at The Godley Hotel which overlooked the lake and basically called it an early day! After an hour of nap, the weather cleared and the mountains and lake looked totally different an hour ago! Check out the photos!
@ 2pm
@ 3pm
@ 4pm
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