A a result of the car change caused by the accident a
couple of weeks ago the replacement car is due its New Zealand equivalent of an
MOT and so we agreed to bring it in to Christchurch for them to action whilst
we did a little sightseeing. So we had an early start, for us, and left the
site around 10.15 for the 50 mile drive in to Christchurch, it was lovely
weather when we left but over the other side of the mountains the weather was
distinctly different and much cooler and quite windy.
The car hire people lent us another small Nissan which
when you turned it on spoke to you in in Japanese but we could not make out
what it was saying, probably the Japanese equivalent of ‘have a nice day’ we
think.
Our first port of call was a motor home dealer as we
wanted to look again at what it is that causes this demand for expensive motor homes to hire and so we took a look.
Most of them have a double bed in the loft area of the drivers cab and its
about 50 inches wide and about 30 inches high and it a comfortable coffin. No
thanks…. But these were second hand motor homes with 50/60 thousand miles on
the clock from ex hire companies selling at ridiculous prices £ 60/70 K. To
rent these larger vans is in the region of £ 175 per day minimum for you to
roam free as a bird and stop where you want except that is hard to do so they
all congregate on sites at £ 35.00 per night and park within a couple of feet
of each other, no way for us as we are in our tent with a lovely blow up queen
size bed and loads of room and it costs us about £ 15.00 per night plus car
hire for £25.00 per day so a damn site cheaper and even the motels we stay in
when we don’t camp only cost say £ 60.00 per night.
We received confirmation from Interislander the company
that operates the ferries across the cook straight and they use a strange
mixture of 24 hour and regular clock times and so our ferry is shown as 02.00
pm and it actually leaves at 14.00 hrs,
work that one out. Anyway I digress. Across the road from the RV place was of
all things a MG car dealer, so we walked across and they are not bad, these
were not automatics but a good size.
Then we walked around the devastation that is City, oh
what a shame and so much damage. They have started the city rebuild but it will
take years as many water and sewer pipes have to be upgraded first before they
can start rebuilding. However the City Council and HSBC already have brand new
building, as usual. We had lunch in a little place and both enjoyed the Lamb
Rogan Josh Pie and chips, which was really excellent.
We collected the car and headed back to Akaroa and
spent the rest of the evening in the park lounge reading and then off to bed
after another nice day. The sky was very clear when we walked back to the tent
which might mean it could be a little colder overnight but we are well
prepared.
