Woke up early and got packed up, ready to check out. Offloaded some stuff onto Andrew for him to take back to the UK for me, in a desperate attempt to lighten my bags – I am yet to actually notice the difference! The sun was shining outside and it all looked quite beautiful, with bright, clear blue skies.
After checking out, we decided to have some silly fun, so went to a place just a stone’s throw away from the YHA called A-Maze-N-Golf! It is exactly what it says it is; a maze and golf! In fact it’s an 18 hole mini/crazy golf course and some strange Aztec themed maze thing. We decided to just have a go at the mini golf and it was indeed a real hoot! There were lots of awkward obstacles to contend with and after a lot of laughing mixed with a real competitive edge, oddly enough we ended up each with a score of 56, when the actual par is supposed to be 41 (I can’t believe that for one minute!).
As we headed out of town, we bought some petrol from a tiny filling station with two pumps, before continuing our drive in the direction of Christchurch. We stopped in a little town called Culverton, another one horse town that looked like a slightly modernised street from a dodgy western film, with a few shops (few being the operative word) comprising a tea room, bakery, stationers, cafe and craft shop (entertainingly called ‘Three Bored Housewives’!). We went to the bakery and got a coffee and cake, then took these and sat in the sun in the little park area, against a backdrop of the mountains, now quite far in the distance.
When we got back on the road, we realised we must be getting closer to Christchurch as the radio suddenly burst back into life, after having no signal for a very long time. The station we’d been listening to played lots of classics, so we had that on full blast, belting out some good driving tunes for us to sing along to as the sun shone down on the hills (no longer mountains) around us!
Once back in the more built up area, we headed to the doorknob shop and collected the door furniture, before continuing to the city centre. I managed to check into a new hostel, called the Coachman, relatively painlessly – I am only going to be here one night, so it is no big saga. In my room is a nice Japanese lady, probably mid 40s, so I am preparing myself for some potential Japanese rustling in the morning if she gets up before me!
After I had sorted out my stuff ready for my early start in the morning, I decided to head into town and find the shop of the bus company I will be travelling with – Stray. This was namely because I had absolutely no idea what to expect or what to do – all I had was a ticket and an instruction to be at a given place in the morning, what happened after that was anyone’s guess. When I got into the shop, the guy could obviously sense I was somewhat panicked and told me to relax. He even went next door to a cafe and bought me a cup of tea, before coming back and going through it with me step by step and building the first part of my itinerary for me! Then I began to feel a little (just a little) less stressed about the idea, although I am still really nervous – I feel like the new girl about to start school and having to get on the school bus for the first time, when everyone already knows each other and already has ‘their seat’ on the bus! Anyway, he tried to appease me even more by giving me a bottle of special Stray wine! So, who knows, I will find out tomorrow if I had reason to be so panicked.
After sorting out the Stray bus thing, I met Andrew in town and we had a meander around the shops, just mooching about at nothing in particular. I did have a surprise when I spotted Captain Silent and the Speaky Brothers (3 people we met on the Solway Lass boat trip to the Whitsundays) – they had said they were going to be going to the Melbourne Grand Prix but I didn’t see them there – they must have practically followed my same schedule. Anyway, that was just odd, who knows, maybe they will turn up again somewhere else in NZ.
We then popped to the library for some free wifi where I did a bit of research on some things to do in the North Island – how am I going to cope without any form of free wifi as I circumnavigate the rest of NZ?!?
For dinner we went to a nice restaurant called Coyote, a Mexican with a NZ twist, then I went to The Bog to meet Jet for a drink whilst Andrew nipped to the car for a bit of a nap – he is having to stay up all night as his plane home leaves at stupid o’clock in the morning, so he has to drive to the airport at really stupid o’clock to check in. I had a quick pint with Jet, before Andrew arrived and I said my farewells to both of them, before heading to the hostel and to bed.
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