Christchurch (for Jan. 27)

Well, it finally happened. We jumped into the car this morning and turned into the empty street in front of our small town motel. Everything went great for the first block. Then, another car approached me from the opposite direction in my lane! What a bozo! Oops, the bozo was me!

We hit the road at 9:30, squeezed off some more pictures of Mount Cook in the morning light, stopped in Timaru for about 3 hours, booked into our motel in Christchurch at 4:30, and went exploring.

We started the day on a dry, wide plain, surrounded by distant mountains. Even here a few sheep eked out a meager existence on the sparse grass. We descended a tame mountain pass into a narrower valley that, due to the vagaries of weather, was much less arid and full of grazing you-know-whats. As we neared the coast near Timaru, the valley widened into a gently rolling, and, eventually, flat coastal plain. From Timaru to Christchurch, we were on a flat coastal plain the whole way. I was able to use cruise control pretty regularly today – the first time since we hit the country.

Timaru was quite interesting. It is another small city full of pre-1900 buildings. They have been overtaken by progress more than the ones at Oamaru. They are dressed up more, their features are more hidden by modern signage, and there are more gaps filled in with modern buildings, but they were still pretty neat. We found a nice park there for a picnic lunch.

At Christchurch, we went for a long walk through the Botanic Garden and then downtown. The garden was pretty good, but we have seen a few recently, so we weren’t blown away. Downtown is very interesting with old buildings also, a small river winding through town, and a thriving café scene. More tomorrow.

Summer is the season for road work in this country too. They have no need for crack filling with tar and sand, but they do resurfacing, something like we do. Whereas we would put down tar and sand or fine gravel, they use tar (at least, I assume so, although I never saw it – they must cover it immediately) and crushed rock. The pieces are up to the size of your last pinkie finger joint. If I would have known how much of this we would encounter, I think I would have bought the glass insurance. Looks like we made it though.