Well, the heavy rain that started c.7 pm last night continued to bucket down for 12 hours accompanied by strong winds too…😕
Needless to say neither of us barely slept, but there were now signs that the deluge was finally over…phew
Today we set our compass towards Christchurch, the final “real” leg of this stage of our trip..
With it being 10C here we were just a tad pleased to see Christchurch was going to be a smidgen better…😉😎
Before we left we had another “first” by walking up through the rainforest at the back of the campground….it was captivating…
Suitably enchanted, we left to continue the ascent to the summit of Arthur’s Pass, initially across the wide plain and following, for a wee while, the rail track of the Trans Alpine Line, until the climb became both steeper and more twisting in equal measure, but the scenery just kept getting better..
And the 5 km descent into Arthur’s Pass Village, just a handful of buildings reflecting very much it’s past and present, was magical too…
At this altitude, c. 740m, this is the habitat of the Kea, aka NZ’s Alpine Parrot, with several references to it locally…
…and, yet another “first” for us both, we were treated to seeing a couple of them “up close & personal”…😉
The rest of this stage to the outskirts of Christchurch took us past Castle Hill Village (which we had already visited with C & M on the 3 January)…
At 3.27 pm we called in at a roadside café for a cooling drink…only to discover they were closing at 3.30pm !
However, with the mercury having risen to 26C, we were pleased we still got, unsurprisingly for us now, a positive response to our request😉
With the Motorhome being due back by 11 am on Sunday we found a place for our final night in South New Brighton, 500m from the beach😉
Parked up we headed for said beach as the temp nudged 29C…🫠
Scoring yet another “first” we had a wee paddle in the Pacific and strolled along the beach to the distant pier; along the way the local surf rescue team were being put through their paces and we saw how, post the last earthquakes, they had rebuilt this part of Christchurch and very stylishly too…
After some scran in this place we admired the high end luxury apartments that had also been built arriving back to our site at c. 9.30 pm to end our 7 km ”stroll”😉
It was then that the proverbial hit the fan…😱
Checking our paperwork to call the hotel we would be staying at on Sunday night, we had that heart in the mouth moment when we realised we had both somehow got our dates wrong and the Motorhome should have been returned 11 hours earlier and we should have been at that hotel right now!
Action Plan was then implemented as follows:
1. Call hotel – no answer
2. Leave campsite and head straight to hotel – success as night manager there at 11pm..
3. Decant all our stuff into our room then head over to Airport at 11.30 pm to hand back the now empty Motorhome …
4. Arrive at Motorhome return depot at midnight to find no security guard type there – called the emergency 24/7 number to be told to come back Sunday morning at 8 am! Initially, even after explaining that wasn’t possible as we had a train to catch at 7 am, they held their ground, but finally agreed we could leave the MH there if we put the keys in the secure box specifically located there for that purpose…
5. Call Uber and get back to hotel at 1.15 am
6. Walk round to station to ensure it is “just a 5 minute walk” the night manager claimed…
7. At 1.45 an arrived back at hotel suitably unimpressed by Usain Bolt..
8. Pack all our stuff away and crash at 2.45 am in full knowledge we would need to get up by 5.30 am…
Never a dull moment, eh😉🤔
BTDU 