Week 10 - 23rd & 24th Nov.

Christchurch
Tuesday Nov 24th, 2009

This morning I work on laundry and manage to read. Alan is working on the pictures and his journal. This is going to be a lazy day for us.

After lunch we are off to see the country side. First stop is Lyttelton. The road to this place is all but a normal road, then, we travel through this very long tunnel, which is carved through the crater wall of an extinct volcanic. Lyttelton is a small village with a large, active, sea going port. It is number 3 on the list of all ports in New Zealand and the largest in the South island.

On of the historic place we see as we head out of town is the Timeball Station. It sits high on a hill overlooking the port; it was used by sailors to assist in resetting their ships chronometers. We do a quick drive around the harbour, then head toward Sumner.

As we move up the to the lip of the caldera, we stop to look back down the bay…it is a long way down. Kids at the top are waiting for the cars to clear as they are going to skateboard down the hillside. The sides of the road are extremely steep…

Once over the hill we find the town of Sumner and park at the beach. We walk the beach till the end and find the unusual features called Cave Rock and Shag Rock. These are volcanic rocks left after the formation of the volcano thousands of years ago.

The walk up the beach is quite nice, but it is very hot outside. I don’t want to put my feet in the water as there are signs that say use the beach at your own risk as they dump raw sewage into the sea. Not very environmentally friendly if you ask me.

We finish our walk and take a short drive to the top of the point overlooking the beach. There are hundreds of houses perched on stilts built into the side of the hill.

Tonight is movie night at the lodge; we join the crowd in the tv room to watch Wild Hogs after dinner. Tomorrow we are going to do the town.

Omarau, Christchurch
Monday Nov 23rd, 2009
We wanted to stay in Orarau but there was no accommodation available due to a conference. Alan and I headed to Christchurch early. In town there are many sculptures made from automotive and tractor parts...very interesting.

We had a walk about the old part of Omarau down by the harbour. This is a picturesque area. As we crossed the bridge on the way, near a small creek, Alan noticed this little blue thing under a bush. Low and behold it is a penguin sitting on an egg. We didn’t want to get to close for fear we disturb its space, but Alan does get a few pictures.

This historic part of town was the warehouses, which are all made of stone.

Here I met and talked with Graham and his Clydesdale horse, Winchester. He rides using an outback saddle, but when they have a town festival, he hitches Winchester to a wagon for tourists. Today there is a bakery, costume shop, stone carver and pottery shops in these locations.

In Timaru, we stop for coffee and an order of fries. We stop at the local saddlery shop. The fellow inside is very interesting. He does, however, do a beautiful job of leatherwork and shows us a few of his saddle bags in the fabrication stage. The main street of Timaru is all ready for Christmas!

We get to Christchurch and find a lovely modern cabin. Here we plan on staying for five nights. The cabin is very nice, modern, close to the kitchen and the bed comfortable!