We are returning to north via the east coast. The east coast is more populated as the trip is progressing faster. The roads are less curvy and I feel more comfortable on the bus. We've been blessed with really nice weather for the past 2 days while visiting Lake Tekapo and Christchurch.
Lake Tekapo is a small place but magnificant. During summertime there would have been more activities to do like horse trekking but the horses were not ready for the new season and it was too cold for kayaking as well. Luckily there are always walkways to choose from in NZ and they are free.
I didn't want to do anything special. Well I'd have loved to try hot pools but I forgot my bathing suit in Matamata. I went for a hike to the top of the hill. I was out of breath, it was a steep hill, indeed, There is an astronomy centre up there.It would have been interesting but too expensive. They tried to charge over $100 for a tour.
From Lake Tekapo we drove to Christchurch. A few years ago, it would have been a busy, lively city, not at the moment. There are empty spots all over the city centre. The destroyed buildings have already been removed and new ones yet to be build. According to the information they have 10 year plan to re-build the city. Christchurch is very English city, architecture, private school boys wearing white stripe uniforms. Christchurch used to be the second largest city after Auckland. I have a feeling I'd like the vibes there but no it was too quiet.It is gonna enormous amount of time, money and effort before the city will retain its previous glory which I never saw.
It stayed in the historic jail converted to the hostel. If the city centre had been the same, the jail house hostel would have been too far from the city but under these circumstances it didn't matter as there is wasn't much left of the city centre to go to. However, I'd recommend stopping in Christchurch. I chose to see the Antartica centre for an afternoon activity. Lots of interesting stuff. Funnily enough, I found myself in the room you can experience snowstorm, real ice and snow. As if I hadn't experienced any of that when I grew up in Finland. Worth seeing if you are interested kind that of stuff like seeing the smallest pingvin in the world. But after all in it was just one of the modern tourist attraction.
Now we are in Kaikorua, I assume this could be a beautiful place if you could see though mist and clouds annd don't mind rain. You can choose all sort of outdoors stuff like swimming with doplhins, whale watching, fishing. Of course everything costs around $100 but as the weather was bad today, windy and rainy and it never cleared up as predicted, everything was cancelled. We went say hello to seals though. They were relaxing on the rocks as usual. but can get crumpy if a tourist gets too close to them.
All I wanted to do was take a long walk. Didn't really feel like hiking so I've been stuck in the hostel all day. The highlight of the day was trying out sauna. Not too bad too be a kiwi sauna. It was hot enough to make me happy. Tomorrow is suppose to be nice again. I truly hope so as I am going to cross the sea back to the North Island in the afternoon.
