Wednesday, January 28, 2004

We've had a great day today in Christchurch, riding the city circle tram and seeing all the sights. We found all the arty shops that were conspicuously absent in Nelson. Right Foot has been buying up all the weird and whacky things (as he does) and I have made one or two purchases myself. We've just had a fantastic, and very cheap Chinese dinner preceded buy a rich, bitter local draft beer which pubs sell in takeaway bottles. What an excellent idea. Tomorrow, we have a few more touristy things lined up for our last full day, then home on Friday afternoon. See you!

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Spent the morning taking the cure at the thermal pools in Hanmer Springs. Beautiful hot water amid mountain scenery accompanied by a drizzling rain. There were lots of European tourists of stupendous proportions also easing their aching bodies and souls. Right Foot was inspired to break into song,
" I'm a big fat momma with meat shakin' on the bone,
And every time I shakes it Poppa,
A skinny woman leaves her home."
Truly, he has a song for every occasion.
We have now handed the van back to Maui with great relief. Never, ever again.
A taxi to the Centra where we have a large and very comfortable room on the 9th floor - bliss, bliss. Now we're doing our first reccy of Christchurch, scoping out the eateries, shops and a bit of culture as well. This is much more like it.

Monday, January 26, 2004

Our last night in the motorhome and we are in Hanmer Springs, a quaint spar town where we are planning to take the waters tomorrow morning. Then it will be on to the luxury of three nights in the Centra hotel in ChristChurch. Hello Centra! Give me Doctor Jazz! He's got what it takes, I'll say he has!
Happy Birthday to all Australians - have a good one.
Lots to catch up on blogwise. We visited the glaciers, Fox and Franz Josef. They are interesting but receding rapidly and we wondered what will become of the tourist industry that has grown up around them when there is nothing left to see.
Feeling all scenic wondered out, we headed to Nelson which was said to have a thriving arts community but this was a lie. Nelson is a dud - don't go there.
So it was back to the scenic wonders and we are currently in Kaikora where we have just been on a snorkelling trip to swim with the seals. We have seen hundreds of seals up close and personal in the last twelve hours and they were all lolling around on ther rocks when we swam out to the reef but unfortunately they weren't in a mood for frollicking with the humans. There we were, six freezing crazies floating around while the seals looked back at us and said, "Nah. Too cold in there for us." Still it was a great trip.
Now my personal Grey Nomad is all ready to take off to Hanmer Springs so gotta go,folks