Day 29 – February 13, 2011 – Christchurch, New Zealand

Dinner last night with Hern and Pam from Tulsa and Martha and Tom from Boston was a lot of fun.  We enjoyed a lot of conversation and laughs as we got acquainted.

This morning it is cooler and cloudy as we enter Port Lyttelton, the port city for Christchurch.  We went on the High Country Explorer excursion – an all day trip.  There were 4 buses and they split the group as Bus 1-2 and Bus 3-4.  We were on Bus 1 so our itinerary was first the ride across the Canterbury Plains to the Gorge Bridge over the Waimakariri River and then down several narrow gravel roads to the Woodstock Station.  There we boarded our Jet Boats for the ride up to river to the boundary to Flock Hill Station.

You had the choice of getting into the jet boat from stairs and a platform at the lodge while the boat was on the trailer and then riding down to the river already in the boat.  Or a short walk down to the boat.  It looked like the road down wasn’t very steep so we decided to walk.  However, what we hadn’t seen was the trail behind the lodge that was steep and gravelly. They had some built in stairs but it was still a bit of a challenge for Fred.  I needed to help him down a couple of places.   There was only one woman who made a snide comment about people who shouldn’t be on the trip.  We just ignored her.  By the time everyone made it down, we had not delayed the loading of the boats at all.

We had 18 people in the boat which was full.  We did the trip in about 15-20 minutes at about 40 miles per hour.   It was a fun trip but they didn’t do any of the 360 spins that the jet boats are famous for.

At the boundary of Flock Hill the boats just pulled up to the bank nose first and we had to climb out and over to the gravel bank.  Fred made it just fine.  They had all the tossuck buggies lined up – they are big 4-wheel drive buses.  They had a fire going with a heater for tea or coffee.  We had to wait until all of the two buses were at the landing before continuing.  Since there were only two jet boats, they both made a couple of trips.

The only problem at the landing was the sand flies – they were terrible.  They had bug spray for all of us and that helped.  We were there about 30 minutes as we were the first boat to arrive.  The later boats had tea at the lodge where we loaded so when they all arrived, we were ready to go.

One of the tussock buggies was towing a port-a-potty.  It accompanied us through out the next part of the drive.   It was fun to see the driver of that vehicle so knock on the door before he left to make sure on one was inside.  At one stop, a lady came out – so it was good he checked.

We were in the lead buggy with the owner.  He had his sheep dog puppy with him who took up the entire front seat.  The dog kept trying to sit in his lap as he was trying to negotiate many steep gravel roads.  Fred was nervous every time he shifted gears going up hill.  At the first stop, the driver chained up the dog with a short chain so he couldn’t get over the gear shift any more!

We drove about 12 miles over the Flock Hill station.  It is a huge property of 35,000 acres.  They graze sheep, beef, and red deer.  The clouds were low so we didn’t get a good view of the southern alps of New Zealand but the scenery was spectacular and the drive very interesting.

When we reached the Flock Hill Lodge on the highway, Buses 3 -4 where there.  They had started with a tour of Christchurch and then the drive to Flock Hill Lodge where they had an early lunch.  They got into the tussock buggies and we got into the buses.

We had lunch at Flock Hill.  It was a simple buffet but handled nicely.  You will always have lines at a buffet but it wasn’t anything like the mess at the Gondola Restaurant.  We then returned to Christchurch on the buses.  We arrived just as the Arts Center was closing so we had a short stop at the city square.  They are getting ready for a big flower festival and there was a flower carpet inside the Cathedral.  Jan hurried across the square, paid the entrance fee and had a short stay inside.  It was nice and when I get the pictures uploaded, I’ll post some.

Then back to the ship where we had some late afternoon showers.

Dinner at Compass Rose and showtime with Glen Amer, the Australian “piano man”, completed our 29^th day.