Saturday, August 11

Saturday, August 11

5:00 morning which really turned out to be a 5:15 morning by the time we got out of bed. We had to be out of the house by 6:00 and we were. We loaded up in the car and drove the empty Palmerston North streets towards the airport. At one intersection, we sat at a red light that would not change to green although no one else was on the road...no one else besides the police car that pulled up behind us, that is. After the cop sat behind us for awhile, he pulled ahead of us and waved us through the light just as it turned green.

We drove on through town and stopped at another red light. Just as that light turned to green, another cop who was behind us turned on its lights and pulled us over. What the heck?!?

Josh was driving and his dad was in the front seat. Josh's mom and I were in the backseat. I could hear what the woman cop was asking Josh and apparently he had to say his name and address into some sort of machine.

I thought the cop was recording Josh's details for a database but apparently that is how they test for drink driving in New Zealand. The cop didn't even say if Josh had done something wrong like in the states they have to have a reason for pulling you over. Here, she just pulled Josh over for NO REASON other than we were driving out in Palmerston North at 6 in the morning! After checking his driver's license she was like, "Do you know you can only use a foriegn driver's license for a year in New Zealand?" Josh said yes and we were free to continue on to the airport. Man, if that was me I would have given the cop some attitude. I told Josh he handled the situation VERY WELL.

We reached the airport without further incident and stood in a bit of a line before checking in and checking our luggage. Again, they didn't ask us for any identification. We paid our departure tax and waited about 15 minutes before boarding the flight. We were on a bigger plane to Christchurch (2 seats by 2 seats) rather than the 1 seat by 1 seat we took to Nelson. Josh's parents were seated one row up from us and Josh and I were in the emergency exit row seats...lots of leg room.

The flight started off well enough and although it was pretty cloudy below, I think I could make out the top of Mount Taranaki...but it definitely wasn't as good as on a clear day. As the flight attendant started going down the plane with the coffee she told Josh's mom that it was going to be bumpy as we went to Christchurch. GREAT.

That girl wasn't lying about it being bumpy either. Oh-my-gosh, it was crazy wind causing us to have a bumpy ride. It was managable until we turned inland toward Christchuch. I swear I heard the wind howling hard against the side of the plane and it became so intense as we were turning I had to say pretty loudly "IT'S JUST THE WIND" to try to calm myself down. Even the landing seemed tipsy because of the winds...but at least we did land safely. WHEW!

Now in Christchurch, we waited for our checked luggage to come off the plane as Josh called the car rental company who would shuttle us to their location about 5 minutes drive from the airport. 10 minutes later we went outside to the bright green shuttle van (the color of the Jucy/Ezy rental car company...they are changing their name from Jucy to Ezy).

Josh and I sorted out the paperwork and then the guy showed us our rental car. Uh, we didn't need a super flash car to go where we wanted to go but man, this car was looking ROUGH. Seriously, both the front and rear fenders were about to fall off and the walk-around-the-car-inspection wasn't really necessary as the guy could just draw a big X over the whole vehicle and it would have been an accurate representation. The suitcases fit in the trunk but the 3 backpacks would have been a challenge. Then, I saw that the car was a 1999 and I thought I'd rented us a car that was at least a 2001.

I asked if that was the type of car we had rented. The guy looked up some stuff on his computer and said it didn't say on his system but that there was another car out back that he would pull around for us to look at. Immeadiately upon seeing the next car I knew it was much better than the first. Nothing was falling off this car and it was a 2001. Plus, ALL the bags and our jackets fit in the trunk! It took an extra 10-15 minutes to switch cars but it was worth the time to make the change especially since the newer car was the same price as the first. Although we had a "JUCY" sticker on the back windshield, we nicknamed the car "Flash Dos" (dos meaning two in Spanish because the original Flash is our Palmerston North car). The white car in the picture below is our rental car.

We went onto the Antarctic Centre which is right across the street from the airport. We were some of the first people there as it opened at 9 and we got there at 9:15 or so. We saw some cool exhibits and then donned heavy winter coats and shoe covers and went into a room that simulated a winter storm at -17 C which is 1.5 F. There was an ice slide over an igloo and we had some fun in there before going to watch the penguin feeding.

All the penguins had something wrong with them that prevented them from being able to live in the wild. After watching the feeding, we viewed some more exhibits and then we headed out of the centre in search of lunch at Dux de Lux...the place Josh and I ate at our last time in Christchurch. I read the map PERFECTLY to lead us to our destination...I was so proud of myself. We easily found parking on the street and there was an outdoor market going on.

Lunch at Dux de Lux was alright...not as good as last time. My veggie samosa was not so tasty. The food looked good but just didn't taste good.

After lunch, we walked to Cathedral Square where we were able to catch the last day of the art display. Here's a picture of some inflatable flower art. Josh's parents went into the cathedral while Josh and I stayed outside soaking up the sun and watching what had to be the worst street performance we've ever seen. The guy was just not entertaining.

After catching back up with Josh's parents we looked in a souvenier shop or two for them as they were on a mission to find some New Zealand t-shirts. We were also on the lookout for the Harley Davidson shop so Josh's dad could buy some gear. We found the street that the Harley shop was located on, however, it would be a several block walk there and back so we decided to walk back to the car and drive to the Harley shop.

We easily navigated our way through downtown Christchurch and as we were stopped at a red light I could not resist taking the photo of this girl in the MOST AMAZING outfit. She was well dressed and coordinated. Check her out (clicking on the photos makes them larger and I love how I got that graffitti on the wall...so artistic!):

So, we did the Harley shop where things were expectedly expensive but I did find a bike or two I think it would be nice to have-and I'm not a motorcycle person. Josh's dad bought himself some NZ Harley gear and then we were off on Highway 1 south toward Lake Tekapo.

Sitting in the back seat, my sleepiness started sinking in and I dozed off and on. We stopped a lot for pictures of the mountains in the distance. When we reached Ashburton, we went through the McDonald's drive through for ice cream cones.

On the road again, on the road again...loads of driving but the scenary was nice (seeing lots of lambs and mountains) and the roads were definitely the best/flattest on the South Island. When we took a bathroom break in a small town it started sprinkling which turned into rain. Bugger!

While Josh's parents took photos of the deer farm we drove past, I called the agent for the holiday home we'd be staying at in Queenstown the following evening for the access code to the key box.

Finally, we reached Tekapo around 5:30. I didn't have specific directions to the cottage, however, I remembered seeing it last time we were here and Tekapo is so small that there is only one residential area. Fortunately, Josh and I found the house on our first try. We checked into the Alpine Cottage and were shown the place by the owner. We didn't stay long because we were hungry.

Really raining now, we drove down to "town" which is really a small strip of shops and a gas station. We placed a takeaway order at Jade Palace: chicken curry, spicy beef, and sweet and sour pork with 2 sides of rice. While our food was prepared, we walked down to the grocery shop to buy breakfast, drinks, and snacks for the following day. We also went to the "bottle" shop which is similar to a liquor store except that at this place, you just walked up to a window and you could look at the drinks they had displayed and that's what you could choose from. Interesting not being able to wander the shelves yourself.

Walking back through the pouring rain, we picked up our takeaways and drove back to the cottage. We set up the table and were so impressed with the presentation that we took a couple of photos. Dinner was really, really good. We ate as much as we could handle and there were still leftovers. Because of the rain, our stargazing tour at the Mount John Observatory was canceled. That was alright though because it meant we had more time to hang out in the Awesome cottage. We started up a fire in the gas fireplace and played two rounds of Scattergories having some pretty big laughs! We were really tired from our early day, however, so Josh's mom went to bed, I relaxed in a hot bath, and Josh and his dad watched Star Wars. We were all asleep just after midnight and we needed to be up and ready to leave the cottage by 10 the following morning.

Here are some more pictures of the 2 bedroom/2 bathroom cottage: