26/4 - Aukland; Christchurch

It was a thirteen-hour hop from LA to Aukland. That's a long time in a cramped position, and this was not one of those planes for which each seat had its own monitor with five movies to choose from. So things dragged a bit, but we were able to catch a little sleep. We were served two meals: a late night dinner and an early morning breakfast. Decent airline food, and much better than what we got on the return flight.

The next step was to take an Air New Zealand flight from Aukland to Christchurch. When we took our baggage through Customs, the Air New Zealand people asked if we wanted to catch an earlier flight. We were willing, but it required switching terminals--a "ten minute walk" to the domestic terminal that took longer than that and was a little stressful, given that we were dragging luggage and trying to get there before the flight left.

Anyway we made it and had a beautiful flight between the islands, following the progress on the map and out the window. What a beautiful country: water, mountains, green fields, blue skies, and 20°C. (All temperatures will be given in Celsius from now on because that's what's used Down Under.)

At Christchurch airport, we used the Airport Information Service desk to contact our hotel transfer connection, who soon showed up. This was the first of many extremely pleasant interactions with the people of New Zealand.

We were able to check in early at the Heritage Hotel in Christchurch, the nicest hotel we stayed in the whole trip, except for the other Heritage Hotel we stayed in Queenstown six nights later. Showered and shaved before venturing out on the town. (New Zealand and Australia use 220-240V electrical outlets with angled plugs. I had brought both a converter and an adapter plug that I used in England. With one exception, every hotel we stayed in had a builtin outlet the would support American electric razors. Most, but not all, also had blow driers in the room. But we still needed both the converter and the adapter for the curling iron my wife had brought with her.)

Christchurch is a pleasant town, which was walkable from our hotel, with stone buildings and a nearby signature Cathedral.

We decided to take a walk on this perfect day. Starting from the hotel and walking down Worchester Street, we saw interesting statues and buildings. 

We ate a nice lunch at Le Cafe on Worchester Street, and learned that grapefruit juice is orange in New Zealand and doesn't taste like the Florida variety that I am used to. You can, however, ask for "pink grapefruit juice" and get something a little more familiar.

We then had a look through Ernest Rutherford's house. This Nobel laureate was from Christchurch before spending his academic career in England. The house features some working equipment to demonstrate his ideas. Around the back was a quiet public square including a tree showing off its fall colors.


We then walked through the extensive Botanical Gardens and nearby Hagley Park. Even though it is fall Down Under, we saw many varieties of flowering bushes and plants throughout our stay. The park and gardens are bisected by the River Avon, and punts and other boats were abundant, either pole-your-own or with quaintly dressed punters to do the hard work.




Lots of interesting trees and bird life, including many varieties we had not seen before.

Back to the hotel, we tried to stay awake until 8:00PM to resync our internal clocks. There is a ten hour difference between NZ and Atlanta, which made it 4:00AM when we finally gave in to our comfortable bed.