Day 55 – Christchurch

Woke up fairly early in our tiny little techno room at the Hotel So in downtown Christchurch. The bathroom is one of those circular gigs, also quite small but clean and super modern. We have a ‘control station’ next to the bed, which you can set everything apart from GMT on!! It has a special mood-wake-up system, whereby the light above the bed, called ‘sunlight’, gently glows like the rising sun, waking you up gently. At the same time, the TV automatically turns on to a ‘mood’ channel showing the ebb and tide on a golden sand beach – sound effects and all. After 5 minutes it snoozes, and then repeats the whole process until you are fully awake!! I enjoyed the gentle waking, whilst Seio slept through the whole experience…I guess some of us are lighter sleepers!! Typical (^^)>

After breakfast, we stepped out of the reverse-tardis and headed into town and towards the Botanical Gardens. We did see a couple of people punting up and down the river Avon, but we ended up using our legs for the journey!!

We followed the river all the way up to the gardens, which were very beautiful indeed. The ducks were out in full force – paddling around and having fun. We walked the whole way around the gardens, passed the rock garden, stopping off to take a look in the conservatory and the cactus house, before ending up in the Rose Garden. This garden was so pretty, and the amount of different roses on show was amazing – the fragrances very delicate and charming. We sat on the bench admiring the view for a while … and I ended up doing my famous sunburn trick – red nose and lobster face as usual!! Oh well…

On the way home we passed back by the Remembrance Bridge and the statue of Sir Robert Falcon Scott. We also stopped by the rental company to sort out a car for the following day. We need to rent a car for the next 7 days up to the end of our New Zealand journey.

After organizing to pick up the car tomorrow morning, we headed back to the hotel via the supermarket.

In the evening we did some laundry and packed our suitcases ready to set off for Timaru in the morning.

….. I can’t believe where the time is going, but we are enjoying every day here – the scenery is breathtaking, there aren’t many tourists around, the roads are straight and fast and the weather so far has been absolutely beautiful!