Tommy & Rhonda's Travels

Queenstown to Christchurch

NEW ZEALAND | Monday, 5 November 2007 | Views [267]

We had a good nights sleep and woke up very, very early for Rhonda’s physical therapy appointment at 7am. We drove to the office, she went in for treatment and I headed out for a run. It was pretty chilly, enough to see your breath so I was a little cold for the first half, my hands were freezing but I warmed up and had a good 35 to 40 minute run. I went back and picked Rhonda up and we headed back to the hotel. We got cleaned up, packed up and headed out to the airport. We stopped at Subway on the way to the airport and picked up a 2 for 1 breakfast sandwich to eat when we got to the airport. We stopped for a refuel, and made it to the terminal to return the car. It really was nice to turn that car back in without any damage or wrecks! We got checked in for the short flight to Christchurch and scarfed down our breakfast. It was nice to get out of there on time as they were saying some bad weather was coming and Queenstown is notorious for cancelled flights. We arrived in Christchurch and hopped on the city bus to take us to the center of town, right by the hotel. We had to walk about 2 blocks to the Hotel So but we made it easily. There was a chill in the air but we weren’t cold and the fleece felt pretty nice. The hotel did not have our room ready so we dropped off our bags, headed to their lounge to chill for a bit and get some internet stuff done but their connection wasn’t working. After about 15 mins of that, we headed out for some lunch and went to a place called Joe’s garage a few mins from the hotel. I had some ham and cheese sandwich and Rhonda had a salad. I think sometimes the food is the worst part of traveling, its hard to just go get a healthy meal anywhere. Everything has cheese, butter, or something on it but you never have any idea what is coming on it and they look at your like you are a stupid, annoying American if you start asking lots of questions. So, normally I just order. After lunch we went and got checked into the hotel. Upon arrival in the room…well first reaction…it was the smallest hotel room I have ever seen. I’m not even kidding; it was probably about a 13x9 room. There was a double bed with wall on 3 sides. There was probably a foot or two of shelf space at one end of the bed with a flat screen TV above it. That was the whole width of the room. The length not much better, it was probably 8 or 9 feet to the bed, enough for a desk on one side and a bathroom on the other. We are talking airplane sized bathroom complete with a shower maybe big enough to turn around in if you are in exactly the same spot. Needless to say, room 633 was a very nice room, just tiny. After stuffing our stuff under the bed so we could move in the cramped space, it was time to head out and explore Christchurch. We walked all over town to the main spots and of course the Cathedral square. We took plenty of pics around town and enjoyed our day exploring. The city has a great vibe and we enjoyed just being there. We picked out a spot for dinner that was having a good Monday night special and after a few hours of exploring we went back to the Hotel So to relax for a few mins and get ready for dinner. We headed back out and ate at the Viaduct. I had a pizza and beer and Rhonda had spaghetti with a glass of wine. It took 30 mins to get our bill (ugh) and it was especially annoying since we were kind of tired and had to get up super early. After we left we headed over to Annie’s wine bar for a glass of wine at the insistence of our friends Mike and Julie from SF. It was a great place and the wine was tasty. There was a tour group in there of about 30 or 40 old people and Rhonda and I were hoping that wasn’t us one day unless we were really old, like 85 or so. After that we headed out in the rain to stop off for a drink at the dux de lux, a famous pub in Christchurch. It was totally dead when we got there, we were tired and knew we had to get up super early so we went home and crashed out. I finished uploading the pics we had been doing before we went to dinner and most all of our pics to that point had been uploaded. We crashed out with the special hotel wake up system set for 4am with a 4:15 am super shuttle pick up in the morning.

Tags: Adventures