Day 33: Christchurch

Another day on the “brilliant” end of the scale.
We sailed into Lyttleton, which is just the other side of a mountain ridge from Christchurch proper. The landscape was unseasonally green due to recent rains, and indeed snow the day before we arrived.
We piled onto our bus and travelled to the base of the mountains on the other side of Christchurch. Simply stunning countryside; between the views and the jet boating I took something like 150 photos. Loved it.

The jetboating place also had a few sheep and alpacas which were used for tourist shows. Being tourist sheep and alpacas they were particularly friendly to visitors.


Emma making friends with animals. Quelle surprise.
Of course no self-respecting New Zealand sheep station, even a bite-size one like this, would be complete without a Border Collie sheepdog. This one was named Jess, and an absolutely gorgeous dog, and needless to say Emma became best buddies with it.

Then there was the jetboat excursion proper. What a rush.
This a 40 minute roundtrip excursion, but it felt like half that. Screaming up the river at 1,000 OPH (Omigods Per Hour), in water that was as little as four inches deep (the boat travels so fast it planes across the surface of the water. They told us if we actually stopped in any of the four inch deep parts we wouldn’t be going anywhere soon), up a beautiful canyon, and probably terrifying the local fish (although the birds were remarkably blase about the whole thing).



Just wonderful stuff. Five stars.

We drove back through Christchurch, a pretty little town of about 300,000 people. We were too tired to get off and wander, although we spoke to a few people who did who said it was just beautiful.
I popped up to catch a few sunset piccies, and went to dinner with two friends from Coffs Harbour, Fred & Suze. By the end of the meal we had a competition to see who could fall asleep at the table first, Fred or Emma. Fred won, but not by much, so we went to our room, collapsed and -
*Snore*