Blah Blah Bliss: Day 21 Monday (22/08/2011)

The nights are certainly becoming warmer. We had set our alarm to 7am as we wanted to get an early start. We dressed and had breaky and while Ian was getting the camper ready to go, I set off in search of pretty photos. Not hard to do at this place. Trickling stream, babbling brook, birdsong, snowy hills, shaded forest and leafy pathways. Then we set off for the drive to Christchurch via Lyttleton. We were rewarded with some of the most spectacular scenery yet (in the way of bays, glistening blue/green and snowy mountains.) We took a detour to go up to yet another very high lookout called Sign of the Kiwi and found there was still plenty of snow on the ground and incredible view of the whole area. We were surprised to see lots of cyclists way up here, (of the mountain-biking kind and road racing variety.)

The beautiful scenic mountain drive and the suburbs seemed to blend somewhat seamlessly, and before we realised it we were driving through the hilly outer suburbs of Christchurch. We drove right through the centre of the city and saw lots of earthquake damaged buildings. The old churches seem to have taken a beating. We navigated our way to Northlands shopping center so we could look for those last couple of souvenirs, but we found nothing suitable. So next on to a refuse station to do the very last offload, then on to the Airport Gateway Lodge to unload ALL of our gear. It seems to have expanded! How did that happen?

Ian dropped the camper back to Apollo and after having to put some pressure on, they dropped him back to the motel. We realised we'd have to go in search of feed and those missing souvenirs, so we decided to hoof it to the shops. Well.... after 90 minutes we finally found the shops!!! We were so worn out, we ached all over. Walking on hard footpaths is NOT like hiking through lovely snow or forest! It's harder and WAY LESS rewarding! We didn't find any paua shell, but Ian found a cute lambie all on his own so we adopted him. McCafe provided us a lovely coffee and some afternoon tea; then we bought Indian take-away for dinner. We caught a bus back practically to our door and then had the LONGEST showers before a totally relaxing night. We had sorted most of our baggage out earlier and our alarms were set for 3:30am!!!