Our first hotel was right at the airport, the next morning we walked back to the airport to pick up our car for the next ten days. Driving away we were going past farms not five minutes away from the airport, sheep lots of sheep right near the side of the road. it was cold. First day was driving over arthur's pass, we had lunch at the top of the range, first shock, a pie and coffee each and we shared a piece of cake for $38, wow! i thought breakfast at the hotel was overly expensive at $17.50 each, which consisted of yougurt and ceral, coffee and fruit juice, warren had a couple of pastries as well.
Petrol and food throught out the trip was the most expensive things. Fuel ranged from $2.24 to $2.80 a litre, luckily we only needed four tanks of fuel during the whole time. The scenery was awesome the whole way, snow capperd mountains were seen most of the time and at least twice it snowed on the mountains overnight, we didnt see it but there was more coverage the next day. Walked out to the glacier, almost as far as we could go, it has receded over the last few years but still very impressive. As you can tell, New Zealand impressed us, within the first few hours, we had decided to go back and just meanander around. Our tour was good but we had to be somewhere by a certain time as we were booked in.
Storms had hit the day before we arrived closing down some of the roads, another good reason to meanader and go where and when we pleased.
It was cold and I wore my heavy jacket every day, the food was good but heaps of it and rather costly. I didnt notice much of a difference in the supermarkets. We ended up going and buying breakfast stuff and had our normal breakfast which was a lot cheaper than having it in the motels. Queenstown was a very yuppy place and we did venture into town for breakfast and a wander around, ($38!)had to buy some stuff at the chemist, seemed that Warren was a bit senitive to the water or soap. Chemist things seemed the same prices at home and could even buy many of the same things.
coming up the East coast, I suggested that we backtrack a bit as I had seen a wool place, we were on holidays after all. Great handknits and commercial stuff as well but everything was pretty much too heavy for our climate. Warren did pick up some socks and he persuaded me to buy a pop over poncho, I was surprised that the amount was $64 as mine was only $30, marked down from $55, but he only bought one pair! they were $34! Later I did buy some NZ pure wool which I am knitting into a beanie for me, it feels beautiful.
Dunedin had a lot of things going for it but we only had one night there whic was a shame, would have liked to spent more time. We did go to the local museum and dropped into the cadbury factory on the way out, 3 chocolate bars for $10, what a bargain.
Had a day in Christchurch, visited the Aviation museum, went up the Gondola and then went to the beach, ended up talking to a Chinese guy, who was about 70's, I dont think he spoke English so we had a great time chatting to him in Madarin.
At the airport the next morning, that was an early start, we spoke with a lady who was in a wheelchair, she had had a beam of her building crash down on her in the earthquakes, she was very positive and said that it took her awhile but now she enjoys life as much as she can, she was travelling to Brisbane to surprise her daughter and grandson for his first birthday.
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