Flag Hotel Chateau On The Park Christchurch

... and chose the one with Kaikura, the famous New Zealand wine region, the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers as well as Doubtful and Milford Sounds.
We'll have to make a return trip to New Zealand to experience the South Island....another trip also likely worthwhile.

... rapes (thick PJs). We didn't look THAT bad, did we?. Maybe our flannies and beanies were a bit too fashionable for them and they were embarrased with their evening apparel.  Well, Ol' Dolly had a special surprise for the whole wagon train. He'd purchased a "Disposable BBQ". Hey, now we're cookin'!  It was a disposable baking dish containing 5 heat beads, a firestarter and covered in some gauze. Flaash one, aye! We sat it on the ground and lit 'er up! Scene shot: 3 blokes standing ...

... at some of the exhibits. In one we saw the weather patterns in Antarctica. At one point they showed us the ozone hole over Antarctica, and it covered most of the continent at it's largest. We looked at some of the equipment that is used in Antarctic Expeditions. They had an old Ski-Do, a tent, and some of the clothes. (Did you know that Antarctica is one of the driest places in the world? It only snows an ...

... which would be lit up at night. I managed to run back to the cathedral to take some photos - shame we couldn't go in. We then went on to the Arts Centre, museum and botanical gardens, again we didn't have enough time to thoroughly explore this area. Christchurch is very English and was deliberately built to remind settlers of home. It was called Christchurch because the man concerned ...

... was not exactly nimble on her feet, showed us to our room, which was across the road from the reception - she had 3 attempts at trying to get into our room (each time having to go back over the road to get another key) and then decided we needed to have another room and so went back over the road for the key. We finally got into our room at 1.00 a.m. (she must have been exhausted for the rest of the night!!), and it was ...

... wilderness and past the time with a few epic bouts of Monopoly. Once the weather had cleared we set off for the west coast. A day trip took us to the Pancake Rocks to watch the tidal blow holes in action. Further south, after many undulating and winding roads later we arrived at the Franz Joseph glacier for a half-day guided hike. Despite a shoddy tour company the experience was thrilling. Wearing crampons we climbed up onto the glacier to see ...

... br>I had to do a 90 degree turn into the wind and then start high stepping
it, faster and faster, but I only took like 4 steps before we were
airborne! He used the propeller to climb higher and higher, until we
were about 1/4 mile away from where we left. It didn't feel like
anything but cold, so the adrenaline factor was still at a low so far.
Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand mton