Tuesday, May 29

May 29, 2007

Because we were staying in a holiday home rather than a hotel, I told Josh we should plan to leave by noon in order to take advantage of the situation and sleep in more. As I’ve mentioned before, a 10 am check out time is absurd to me. When we did leave the house at noon, following the instructions for departure like properly closing the lounge sheers and turning off the water heater, we went to return the house key to Jenny.

Jenny was standing outside chatting to someone when I approached. She quizzed me on which linen we used in order to determine which beds she was going to have to make up. I was confused and like, why don’t you go down to the house and check, then you’ll know.

Josh and I decided to drive out to the Mount John Observatory one more time because we liked it so much. At the Astro Café Josh and I split a ham sandwich with mustard seed sauce on the side (delicious) and a mochachino. Josh doesn’t like coffee but if you put some chocolate in it, he’s sold. The view was again great today and we had sunny skies. We didn’t want to leave, however, we decided it would be good to get on the road to Timaru since we didn’t know where we were staying at tonight.

The drive to Timaru was enjoyable because it was flat. Josh prefers these roads over the winding roads of the wild, wet, West Coast. As we arrived in Timaru, we first spotted Caroline Bay. Caroline Bay was a man made port and it definitely has the look of an industrial seaport…i.e. UGLY with smokestacks rising up from the coast. The city center itself is nice enough with architecture reminiscent of buildings in Dunedin. We headed to the I-site in order to figure out our accommodation options.

After looking at different brochures and getting a map of Timaru we made a phone call to our top choice, Aspen on King, but they had no vacancy. Our second choice, Avenue Motor Lodge, had an upstairs room available so we went to inspect it. Room 15 was at the end of the property and was a one bedroom unit that was totally flash and new but had no view. The manager told us the room was $130 then left us in to talk it over.

Because there was no view, we thought we should check out another property. When we went downstairs to tell the manager this she asked us if the price was “too dear.” Josh was like “too dear?” Dear means expensive. Then, she offered us the room for $120 but we still left to look at another hotel.

We didn’t know where we were going so we looked at our info and picked a third choice but they had no vacancy in an upstairs room so we went to our fourth choice, the Ashley Motel. They had upstairs rooms available for $120 and it was just down the road from the Avenue Motor Lodge.

After an inspection of two different upstairs rooms, either a 2 bedroom apartment or a studio for the same price of $120, we decided to stay here in the 2 bedroom place. MISTAKE! I was so stupid to not notice that this place is on the state highway and so loud with big trucks going by. AHHHHH! I will never again make a stupid decision like this based on not wanting to drive a little bit more back to the place we'd started at.

We had to get out of the loud apartment (which didn't bother Josh at all) so we went to the Speight’s Ale House for dinner and drinks around 4:30. Our waiter asked us where we were from and said he had spent time working in the states. He also told us that they were still on the lunch menu so that saved us a couple of bucks off of the dinner prices.

When we finished dinner at 6:30, we walked up the main shopping drag in town and realized EVERYTHING except travel agencies and fast food joints were closed…New Zealand hours ahh! Josh decided to get himself an ice cream cone from McDonald’s and at .50 cents each they are probably the best deal in the country. However, his ice cream was very melted as it came out and looked very flat on his cone. It was very funny.

Back to the world’s loudest hotel where I tried to go to sleep early but when that failed I read more of The Tommyknockers. Josh and I used the double spa Jacuzzi and then I went to bed. Josh came to bed later after watching movies and having some of his Absinth which he really has to water down every time he makes a glass.