Travelling together can have its issues as I am sure you will all understand. Having arrived at Twizel and had a delicious meal we retired to the room, where Gerard decided to set the alarm for 7am as we wanted to get up early to get to Christchurch. Daylight saving also came in overnight so we had to put our clocks forward one hour. Not only did Gerard set the alarm in his phone, it went off at midnight and wouldn’t stop – whether it was operator error or not I am not sure, but without his glasses, who would know, the phone then launched itself across the room, where I rescued it and turned the alarm off. The thing then went off at 6am and 7am. So we really did not get a lot of sleep.
Noeline did not take photos the night before, she thought she would do it in the morning, but we woke to a heavy fog and photos were a waste of time. The motel cat made friends with us and Noeline did get a couple of photos of the motel, but not the mountain range nearby. Once again we travelled through brown mountainsides and babbling rivers until we came to Lake Tekapo for breakfast. Rule No.3 remember rule 1 and don’t stop at the first bakery you see. Unfortunately it turned out to be the only bakery. Everything in the shop looked over cooked and dried out, so we ordered toasted bacon and egg sandwiches. After half an hour in the toaster they came out over cooked as well. Noeline couldn’t eat hers it was so bad, so we shared ours and dipped the crusts in our cuppas to soften them. They were so crunchy.
We visited the little church on the lake – it has the alter looking over the lake and a big window behind it – a magnificent view, handy for boring sermons. We also visited the memorial to the Border Collie in recognition of the contribution they make to the cattle round ups. What is really weird is that the land is so dry and the dams empty – apparently they don’t get much rain in the high country.
We resumed our journey to Christchurch and arrived there about 1pm. Andrew and Jordan had been there for a couple of hours and had booked in to the hotel. It was a really nice hotel room with two bedrooms and a roll out bedroom in the lounge. More brownie points for me.
Andrew and Gerard headed off to take Andrew’s hire car back and then we headed into town for lunch. We went to the food court and despite waiting for our meals for ages we had a delicious lunch, Noeline and I discovered a savoury pancake stack was huge and shared it with everyone, because 3 large, thick savoury pancakes with scrambled eggs, bacon and tomato is more than any self respecting woman, no matter how hungry, can pack away in one meal.
We wandered around the shops and booked dinner on Thursday night at the Pinncale Restaurant at the top of the Gondola ride for our last night. We also booked the bus to pick us up from the Railway Station and take us to our hotel. We wandered through Souvenir shops and bought a few bits and pieces.
We then went for a drive to Lyttleton where the port is and stopped for a cuppa before heading down the coast past Cass Bay and Governors Bay. It was very nice scenery and boat harbours that make up suburbs of Christchurch. We headed back into town and back to the unit to find our washing still all wet in the washer/dryer. They are strange machines that really don’t dry your clothes well, unless it was operator error! We set them on dry only and headed into town for dinner at the Tap, where we had dinner on the first night. We wanted to show the boys the stone grill, but Andrew wasn’t paying good money for a meal then have to cook it himself. Gerard and I, had the stone grill prawns for entrée and the chicken breast for main, it was delicious. Noeline couldn’t eat all her pasta, but Jordan ate all his Caesar Salad and gave Noeline a hand. So kind of him. He seems to have grown and got hollow legs – he has such and appetite we can’t fill him up.
Back to the Hotel unit, we watched a bit of telly and the dryer. The clothes came out kind of steamed and we hung them over the room to dry – some of them sort of cooled dry and others were still damp. We ironed some to dry them off. Off to bed we went.
