Gladly left Greymouth on Friday morning (28th) heading cross country to Christchurch, on what I thought would be a nice relaxing drive. I was not, however, prepared for the ridiculous hill climb up to Arthur's Pass, where I'm pretty sure I waved goodbye to the clutch and gearbox, crawling up the hill in 2nd gear. Since then my driving has become pretty terrible, with the constant fear that the clutch will just give up! Got a shock when I arrived into Christchurch, where I encountered the first traffic I'd seen in 2 weeks, and where there's traffic, there's also traffic lights and pedestrians, which took a bit of getting used to. The hostel was located in the city centre, a short walk from the cathedral, however that meant that there was nowhere to park the car, so I had to leave it 30 minutes walk away on the other side of Hagley Park.
Not a big fan of the city itself, too many people, and I was there during the Buskers Festival, which meant that there were temporary stages put up around all the main areas, somewhat spoiling Cathedral Square. Planned to go to the NZ v Pakistan cricket match at AMI Stadium on the Saturday, however the torrential rain in the morning put me off, yet the match still went ahead.
Left on the Sunday heading up to Hanmer Springs, 90 minutes north of Christchurch, where there are hot springs, and a spa resort with a series of hot pools and aqua therapy bath things, which I arrived at just as two big tourist buses pulled up outside, so I decided not to go in...Drove another 90 minutes up to Kaikoura, where there is an abundance of marine wildlife, such as whales and dolphins. Was going to do a boat trip to see the whales, but the bad weather meant that it was cancelled. Nice hostel again, run by a young couple, which had a BBQ on the first night I was there.
Drove up to Blenheim on Tuesday, in the Marlborough wine district, but no wine was tasted, to comply with the whole 'road safety' thing. Visited the excellent Aviation Museum, which is owned by the chap who directed the Lord Of The Rings films, so his film studio had set up the exhibits in a film style environment, including a scene depicting the death of the Red Baron.
Left the next morning to go to Nelson, about an hour up the road, another busy city, and another place where I had to park miles away from the hostel. Not really much of interest in the city itself, except for the site of the first ever NZ rugby match, and the deceptively steep hill, which marks the (unofficial) centre of the country, which gave good views out over Nelson and further afield to the Abel Tasman National Park
With the intention of not killing my car before reaching the North Island, I decided not to drive all the way across to Golden Bay, right on the north west coast, a drive which involved, in the words of the Lonely Planet guidebook, 'a stomach churning meander over Takaka Hill. Instead I drove 50km west of Nelson to Motueka, via Rabbit Island, which would have been lovely if the sun had been out...by the time I reached Motueka it was sunny and very hot. Not much in the town itself, so I drove another 10km to Kaiteriteri (or just Kaiteri to the locals) where there were golden sandy beaches and a warm sea.
Hostel is the best one yet, 5km north of the town, surrounded by orchards and full of people from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (and Germans...), as well as a rainwater swimming pool and nice decking to eat dinner on. Shame I'm only here for one night!
Back eastwards tomorrow, to Picton, where the Interisland ferry will take me to Wellington on Sunday.
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