Daylight saving finished this morning while we were asleep, giving us an extra time in bed and a leisurely start.
The drive to Christchurch is one we had done several times before. This time, we broke the journey in Geraldine where we had lunch at the Barker’s shop and café. When I told Kim about the place, he was quite excited but only to be disappointed that it wasn’t Barker’s the menswear shop, but jams, juices and sauces.
From Geraldine to Christchurch, we tried something different. Instead of taking the main highway, we took the inland scenic route. It wasn’t substantially more scenic but it avoided the holiday traffic. The place that stood out the most was the Rakaia Gorge, I guess. On the normal route by the coast, the land surrounding the river is pretty flat whereas here, the gorge was dramatic in parts.
Part of the Rakaia Gorge and the river.
The route took us through Darfield where a friend had grown up. I managed to message her and get her old home address and snap a picture for her as it has been over 30 years since she was there!
Friend’s home in Darfield.
In Christchurch, our road trip finished. After a bite, we visited my uncle and aunt before checking in at the Bealey Quarter, a hotel I recently stayed at. The room was like an oven when we got there as it faced the sun and didn’t have air-con. We had to open the full-length sliding doors to ventilate and during the night, there were no windows we could open apart from those doors.
My previous room, which was cheaper, did have air-con, secure windows and no trouble with extreme sun.
We relaxed and I reviewed my travel arrangements for tomorrow. I’m flying back to Auckland on standby and the flight was looking pretty full. We discussed the situation and I shifted my flight to one with lighter load at 0900 while Kim would fly on his commercial non-changeable ticket at 1130.
That would give me time in Auckland to collect our car and take it through the car-wash as we had a prospective buyer for it.
In the evening, we met up with one of Kim’s acquaintances, Aaron, for dinner. In view of Kim’s stomach issues of late, we opted for an Asian dinner.