For the first and last time, we went to a small town bakery with pies and breads that were hot, just out of the oven. We had our last picnic in a park (and we were not alone, all the picnic tables were occupied) and did a heroic job of finishing off most of our food. It was a feast.
Got to our last Airbnb house, in an upscale suburb with lots of nice landscaping and clipped lawns. Our host was there to greet us at 2:00 and she and I had a long chat about everything while Jon recovered from all that driving. This nice lady is recovering from recent brain surgery (tumor removed, 36 staples in her head) but she is so prosaic about it. She says you could just as easily get hit by a bus. We had tea and talked about the various places we have traveled, recently and in the past. One of the perks of staying at real people’s houses is sometimes you actually talk to the real people. She had a lot to say about Trump -- she cannot understand how so many people are behind him. No kidding. She clearly keeps up with the news, probably because she is stuck at home recuperating.
 |
| Built in 1911. |
 |
| A redwood, planted many years ago. |
Jon and I went downtown and poked around. Went to the Botanical Gardens (and finally got to read a sign about that blue flower, Agapanthus, that is everywhere -- it is, of course, an invasive and a bit of weed, but at least it is beautiful) and to the Canterbury Museum right next door and then walked a few blocks to see the Christchurch Cathedral that is still in its post-earthquake crumpled state. Decided to eat out in the downtown main shopping/tourist area because we were in a big city. There are loads of Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian tourists (not big campers, we guess, more interested in traveling by tour bus) here. We had Malaysian food for the second time.
 |
| The aforementioned beautiful, invasive flower, agapanthus. |
 |
| This one is for Lenny. He would have to say but my guess is .... an earthquake. |
We are going to have to brace ourselves for 24 hours of travel, going from here to Auckland to Los Angeles to Dallas to Little Rock. The whole thing will happen on the same day as we fly backwards in time. We won’t get January 12 back but we will get a double dose of January 23. It will be so disorienting that it just won’t matter. We will land in winter, in a time zone that is 17 hours different from this one, and all the faucets will have the hot water on the left.
Final round of general observations:
- Chullybun (chilly bin: cooler)
- Fush and chups
- They have small local bakeries with fresh goods baked every day.
- They have tea rooms. So civilized.
- There are benches and chairs everywhere, in museums, on the streets, in the airports. So civilized.
- Several of the museums we visited were free.
- There is a radio station here that satisfies Jon mightily: music from the 50s,60s,70s
- The skate parks are used by young people on scooters instead of skateboards.
- There was a mail delivery truck that was charging toward us on our left, delivering mail, even though there was not enough room for both of us. Not that civilized.
- The parking at the beaches was free and easy.
- There are so many ways to have a camper van, and so many models of Toyota that we don’t have in the US.
- For some reason, there are remarkable numbers of beautifully maintained classic American cars on the road.
- You pump your gas first and then you pay.
- This is a country that likes to vacation outside. There are excellent trails all over the island, places to camp with vans, huts to hike to that have mattresses and running water.
- We drove about 3000 km in 10 days. On the left side of the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment