Mon. – Drive from Te Anau to Christchurch

After using the motel’s wi-fi to update our blogs and download pictures, we headed out on a foggy morning toward Christchurch. We knew it was going to be a long day of driving, but we really want to take the train to Arthur’s Pass. We took the road past Queenstown, toward Lake Tekapo. Just before Lake Tekapo, there were some beautiful clear views of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman – the views from the road before Lake Tekapo were actually better than at Lake Tekapo. There were a ton of buses and tourists at the Church of the Good Shepard there, and we decided that it looked a little too touristy for us, so we kept on.

We reached Christchurch at 4:30 or so & managed to navigate our way to the Old Countryhouse hostel where we are staying. It’s a nice place (definitely recommend) and we got a room with an en suite bathroom – the shower is excellent and room is a decent size. We then walked to the city center and ate dinner at The My Thai and Monkey Bar – it was good food but the service was lacking. We also had some trouble finding it.

Then again, we had trouble finding everything in the city center the first day – it turns out that the maps are wrong. Christchurch has rerouted some of their major roads – for example, there was Blenheim on the map (which is actually closed) and Blenheim (which isn’t even on the map).

But we didn’t learn this until we spent nearly 2 hours walking trying to find the train station (for tomorrow morning) after eating dinner. It was pouring rain the entire time we were looking for it at times, and we were lost several times during the 2 hours just to get there. We finally found it, and it still took us 1 hour 20 minutes to get back to the hostel. Even though the map looks like it’s just a few kilometers from the hostel, it was still a long walk, particularly in the pouring rain.

I was so cold & wet when we reached the hostel – Greg wanted ice cream; I wanted to crawl under the covers and warm up.