After a day spent chilling at H & K's in Auckland, while Hannah sorted out some portfolio stuff (and I made sure my Australian visa was valid, whoops almost forgot!) we flew to Christchurch on the South Island of NZ on the 13th Feb. We booked a (rather dreary) backpackers hostel in the city centre for two nights and despite the intense rain on the morning of Friday the 15th Feb we were glad to pick up the hire car we'd booked and get on the road. Eschewing the charms of dolphin watching at Akaroa (on the Banks Peninsula near Christchurch) because of the weather, we got onto State Highway 1 and drove south across the Canterbury Plains.
The hire car deserves a mention - an 11-year old Mitsubishi Lancer imported from Japan with nearly 200,000km on the clock. It performed admirably, despite getting a nail in one of the tyres on the first day, and numerous dings and cracks in the windscreen the next day thanks to an inconsiderate wally overtaking us on a stretch of gravel road - gee thanks.
Hannah says that I should compliment her on her driving skills by the way.
Anyway after a couple of hours we arrived at the small town of Oamaru (actually they're all small down here) which was once an important port but has been in decline since then - the 1880s or thereabouts. It was surprisingly nice with a couple of colonies of penguins to go and bother. We stayed in a cozy little hostel with a log fire and no TV. By about 9pm the guests were all sitting in the lounge reading their books and papers - nice but extremely soporific. We guessed if there was any action to be had in Oamaru, it was somewhere else.
The next day we continued south, visiting the Moeraki boulders - odd spherical geological formations on the shore of the Pacific - before continuing to Dunedin for the night. Dunedin is gaelic for Edinburgh and the city looked very scottish. No fried mars bars though.
Robin
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