To Christchurch we go ..

We decided to visit the beautiful city of Christchurch and spend an extended weekend in the big city. Last year, Mari, Maya, Lara and myself had spent a week in Christchurch and liked the city a fair amount. We also figured it would be good to show Cecile the sights and sounds of a relatively big NZ city. We made reservations for a two bedroom apartment at Living Space (we also stayed here last year, obviously we are creatures of habit!). The place is quite excellent, has great facilities and you interact with interesting international folks. Its also close to Christchurch center and to some great coffee shops and restaurants.

The weather did not look very promising on the coast, so we delayed our departure to 7:00 am. We took the coastal route and stopped for breakfast at McDonald's in Blenheim. Yes, I know, McD's is not something I recommend, but their breakfast is quite good and we get a craving for it on a quarterly basis (including Maya!). The McD's out here are few and far in between, so some planning is involved if you want to stop at one :). The play structure was quite nice and fancy with some fairly fast slides. I suspect they need to do this to compensate for the erratic weather. Summer out here has so far been more like winter in San Francisco. Fairly cold and quite a bit of rain (significantly more than what CA has gotten so far!).

From Blehheim, we continued south on Hwy 1 towards Kaikoura. The scenery changes quite abruptly midpoint thru. Near Blenheim the mountains are quite brown and bare (one of the few places in NZ that is not very beautiful), midway thru, the coastal rainforest scenery kicks in. Not sure what causes such changes and why, even though you are on the same coast etc.

At Rakautara (20 km north of Kaikoura), we stopped at the famous Nim's Bin for some crayfish. We purchased a medium sized crayfish ($45) with garlic butter and a dozen mussels ($10). This apparently is a bargain compared to what you pay at restaurants in Kaikoura. The location was quite nice, next to water, cute gardens, nice picnic benches etc. The mussels were fresh and quite excellent. The cray fish was very meaty and the garlic butter complemented it quite nicely. Personally, I thought it did not have a lot of taste compared to dungeness crab. Not sure if size matters in this case. Will definitely try it a few more times before we pass our final verdict. We continued our journey to Kaikoura. The day was still quite overcast when we arrived in Kaikoura. The kids played on the beach for a couple of hours. The adults took turns going on 45 minute walks before we packed up and started heading towards Christchurch.

I was driving and forgot to fill up at Kaikoura. 30 mins later I remember that we are a bit low on fuel, and am hoping that we will see a gas station sometime soon. I start quizzing mari on how many more miles to the next big town, how many more miles in the mountain etc, trying to remain calm etc. Luckily 30 mins later we do see a gas station and fill up (and in accordance with Murphy's law, we then see a gas station every 10 minutes).

We reach christchurch in a few hours, and decide to jog our memory to see if we can find the Kapiti Cheese Store so we can buy some dinner provisions. Unfortunately our memory is not great, and we circled the city a few times and did not find it. We then headed to Living Space, checked in, parked the car and took the kids out for a walk to the Cathedral and the square.

Christchurch is definitely much more livelier and active than Nelson at 7:00 pm. I remarked to Mari that we've become country folks and are not used to the busy city life :) The kids ran and jumped around the square for some expending their stored static energy (from sitting in the car a bit too much). We saw a fairly busy soulvaki place (Dimitri's Soulvaki at 709 Colombo Street) and decided to dine on Gyro and Falafel. We bought a vegetarian falagel, a chicken soulvaki and a pork gyro. All three shared the same sauce and additional stuff. The falafels were not very good, but the bread and the sauce combinations made up for it quite nicely. The chicken and pork gyros were quite good and hit the spot. Definitely a place to go if you want a quick meal.

Got quite a few food places and cafes on our list for this trip. More reports as we experience them. The weather is supposed to be quite miserable (rain, rain and more rain), hopefully the forecast will be wrong