We left for New Zealand on Vietnamese New Year Day, the Year
of The Pig. I worked part of the morning. Debbie left her car at our house. Tom
dropped us off at Dulles. The weather was nice. The government opened back up a
few days earlier and assuaged our fears of flights not taking off.
Amazingly, our four legs went smoothly and our luggage made
it through customs in Nadi and arrived with us to Christchurch on Thursday Feb
7th with no problems. (Yes, we lost a day travelling across the
International Date Line.) While in Nadi, we received news that Liên’s flight
was postponed for 24 hours. We didn’t know that she could arrange other flights
until we got to Auckland. The final arrangement gave her a 13-hour delay rather
than the 24-hour delay, but the price for that was an additional $300 and a
night at the airport for Liên. We were grateful for that, though, because that
meant the only disruption for the planned epic trip was having to shorten our
first hike by about 5 hours.
We decided on adding a GPS to the rental car and with it, we
found the Airbnb easily enough. A real estate agent came by the place to
advertise his service, but instead of getting potential clients, he got us -
people who needed the use of his cell phone. We drove out to a local Chinese place
for dinner and settled in for the night, thankful for not having to get up at
midnight to pick Liên up at the airport – which would involve driving on the
left side of the road in the dark while tired. Debbie fell asleep easily. I
stayed up a bit to explore what to do in Christchurch before Liên arrives.
Friday Feb 8th
I got old a day earlier in Christchurch. Today was my
birthday.
Debbie and I found white bread and stale cereal in the
kitchen for breakfast. We had toasts with jam. I made myself a cup of instant
coffee. After breakfast, we took a walk to Jellie Park, a park next to the Airbnb.
I sent Liên a picture of myself at the lake in the park when she texted “How
was Jellie Park?” Later I realized and she confirmed that she meant the Airbnb
(Stay At Jellie Park). But I’m glad she had my happy picture to contrast to her
sad one spending the night at the airport in Brisbane.
After the walk, we checked out and went to Christchurch Gondola.
We got there before it was open, so we walked some of the Bridle Path, a
popular trail next to the gondola, before going up the gondola to the top of
the hill. We spent some time on top savoring the view and hiking.
We wanted to be closer to the airport when Liên arrived and Debbie
said she didn’t mind driving into the city, which is between the gondola and
the airport, so we went into the city and learned how to park on the street and
pay for it with a credit card and even showed a local how to use the system. We
visited Christchurch Cathedral and the Botanic Gardens.
Liên’s flight was about half an hour late, but we were able
to connect and after adding Liên’s name to be an additional driver to the
rental car, we took off for Hokitika. On the way, we stopped at Arthur’s Pass
National Park to take pictures of Castle Hill and hiked to the Devil’s Punch
Waterfall.
Liên treated me to my birthday dinner in Hokitika. The
restaurant is right on the beach. It was a beautiful setting. We got free
drinks for staying at the Drifting Sands. When it was dark, we walked to the
Glow Worm’s Dell. That was my first seeing the glow worms that Liên talked so
much about.
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