Sudima Grand Chancellor Christchurch

Our last day in New Zealand. We fly to Thailand tomorrow evening. We tried to register at the Sudima airport hotel where we had made a booking a couple of months before. They decided that they had no record of the booking and informed us that the hotel was completely full. We had, of course, already dropped off our rental car. We conversed with the receptionist, then the booking office and finally the duty manager. He finally said that if we waited he would try to find "somewhere for you to s...

Day 1 - Mon 23rd Feb 2009 The phone rang waking us up at 11:40 am. It was Mum, "What time did you get in last night". "We landed at 1" I replied. Mum, "I mean from the Pub".... There are no secrets round here! So we missed breakfast. I was feeling, ummmm, acceptable, OK possibly slightly hungover. We found a cafe for breakfast nextdoor at the Antarctic Centre, the 'Worlds Best Antarctic Experience' according to the sign. Consuming fish n chips I recalled the days alcohol consumption; white wi...

We started the day with one last trip to Lake Matheson, which was pretty much mirror-flat just after sun-rise, with a very faint mist hanging above the surface, lending a mystic quality. We passed many other early-risers on our way back to the camp, and just as we rolled into the Lake Matheson car park, so did the 40 seater coach the 'Kiwi Experience', and with it a swarm of mainly American tourists. The decibel levels rose, and we were pretty pleased to be heading the other way, (I'm not sur...

Took a really enjoyable flight with AirNew Zealand from Sydney to Christchurch last night, great service on the plane with IFE really good, fell foul of the biohazard police for failing declare my dirty golf shoes, stayed at the hotel above and were collected by taxi this morning to collect our camper van. It's quite cosy but very well equipped. Been driving through flat countryside from Christchurch then up in to the Mackenzie Countryto Lake Tekapo, very blue.Will post some pics in due cour...

It took us a while to fall asleep at the Sudima Hotel in Christchurch, mainly because the time had shifted by two hours again from Tasmania. In the morning we called our friend Ashley to see about heading over to his place. We didn't have his cell phone number though, so we hung out in the hotel reception interneting and running over to the hotel for breakfast food until we contacted him (thankfully I found that Ashley did email his cell phone number the night before and we caught him at the ...

We made our way back to Christchurch from the Lake Takapo area. There are famous photos of this lake with lovely lupine in the foreground, but we were a few weeks too late for the bloom. We left the lake and drove along wheat fields, sheep and rocky hills. We paused to enjoy a lovely gorge with brilliant aqua water. We wanted to take a hike along the gorge but we were both beat from the previous day of hiking so we passed on the trek and went on to see some of the oldest trees on the south Is...

We started the day in the botanical gardens of Wellington. This is the main city park and its grounds are very well cared for. The park had several California trees such as oaks, redwoods, and sequoias. We meandered through the park and passed by ducks ponds full of fuzzy ducklings before exiting onto a street full of small cafes. Quick lunch and then it was off to the peak of the gardens for a birdseye view of the city. After a quick stroll around the observatory at the top we decided to run...

Well, we have finally left Australia and moved on to somewhere different and plan to be on the move constantly which means more travelpod entrys after the drought that you all have suffered from. We will now torture you with too many as we will be moving about a lot, each day will nearly have it's own entry (have to build up those dots on the map) As you know we left Australia on Friday for New Zealand. The flight into New Zealand was unbelievable! There were so many mountain ranges, rivers a...

Sunday morning, we had croissants and apple juice as breakfast, at one of the picnic tables in the park in the centre of town. What a way to wake up! We then made our way back to Christchurch where we had the rest of the day in the city, as our flight back to Wellington wasn't until Monday morning. In Christchurch we went to the Gondola, which is actually a little way out of town. Not as interesting as Queenstown Gondola but we went and had a look anyway. Afterwards we went to another mini go...