What's Up NZ? I've missed you

I love New Zealand. I had really enjoyed my time spent in the North Island and the South Island is supposed to be even more picturesque. When we planned our trip, I knew the week in New Zealand was going to have some of the highlights. Our flight was delayed a little and instead of getting in around 2, we got in at 5 pm. It was a bummer because we only had one day in Christchurch, the biggest city in the south island, and it really cut into the time we had to spend there. After picking up our super sketchy rental car, a used corola from 1998 with 150k miles on it, we got to driving on the wrong side of the road.


We checked into our super cute bed and breakfast, Anselm House, which was only 5 minutes away from downtown. Jan, one of the two owners in the husband/wife team, gave us a bunch of suggestions for things to do, where to park, and places to eat. Armed with this info we headed into town. One of the super cool things about Christchurch is the small river running right through the downtown area. It is only about a foot deep and they will give you a boat ride (called a punt) along the river. More on that later.


There is a beautiful botanical garden in town as well. It is enormous and we spent an hour and a half waking around before dinner. Megan made sure to stop and smell as many roses as possible. We wandered around the city some more before our dinner reservation. While walking around we realized that we wanted to take the scenic tram tour, go punting and see the main cathedral. Unfortunately all of those are closed after 5 so we had to do them the next day.

We ate dinner at Cookin with Gas. I was skeptical at first due to their dumb name, but once we got there we were really happy with everything. The only issue we had was there was a super drunk guy sitting at the table next to us and he proceeded TO TALK REALLY LOUD THE WHOLE TIME. It was so bad sometimes it stopped our conversation. At one point his wife told him to be quieter and he stormed out of the building. That was the best. Both of our dinners were awesome; Megan had steak and I had salmon.

Since we had a late dinner, we decided to head over to the bar areas. On one of the inter Australia flights I had read the JetStar magazine which said that Sol Square was the new hot spot for bars. It took about 15 minutes to walk over there but even though it was a little out of the way, it was really awesome. It is basically an alleyway with 15 or so bars all packed in. There is also a sort of piazza area in the middle. It was a really sweet atmosphere. We went to fat eddie's which was one of the places suggested in the magazine. They had a live band and it looked really packed. When we were ordering, I asked the bartender to suggest something for me. He said he had just the thing and described it as LIQUID AWESOME. Of course I was intrigued and ordered it. Turns out it was a rum and coke with Matusalem Classico rum and a bunch of lime squeezed in. He was right it was pretty awesome. When I got a 2nd, I had a different bartender and didn't know how to get the same thing so I told her that the other guy had recommended a drink to me as LIQUID AWESOME and I wanted the same thing. She knew exactly which bartender it was and went and asked him how to make the drink. This whole area was neat because people would come for a live band and then leave once their set was done to go to a different place for more live music. It seemed like everyone was hopping through bars pretty quickly.

The next morning, we woke up early to a delicious breakfast that Jan had prepared for us. They had a delicious fruit salad, homemade jam and toast and eggs benedict. We liked the jam so much that she bottled us up a jar to take with us! They were super nice and we loved staying there. Plus they had free wifi! I <3 the internet. Afterwards, we jumped on the tram and rode it around the city. It tells you some about the area and also is an easy way to get around.

They sell combo tickets for tram tour and a punt in the Avon (the river running through Christchurch. We had purchased one and as soon as we finished the tram tour, we got off at the punting location so we could get that done before the crowds. It turned out not to be an issue because it started raining, but we got the first half of the ride done before the rain. They give you umbrellas and warm blankets so it was still comfortable. Afterwards we took a look at the beautiful cathedral downtown before heading over to the market.


Megan LOVES street vendors so she enjoyed shopping around. We bought some kiwi candy from a monk who hand makes all of it. We are still snacking on it. Even though we had already eaten lunch, I found my weakness again: german style sausages. We ordered one to split and it was the most delicious sausage I have ever eaten. We jumped in the car and starting driving to our time share in Wanaka.


We had scheduled a scenic flight around Mt Cook, but that was cancelled due to weather. This would be a recurring theme as well. Unfortunately we took the scenic highway to Wanaka but the weather didn't cooperate and it was foggy and rainy the whole way so we didn't get much of a view. We got into Wanaka, checked into our room and then ran downtown to get groceries for the week. They had gas grills as well as a weird microwave/oven combination where you could bake stuff as well as microwave things so we got a bunch of dinner food as well as meat for lunch. Prices were funny. It was about 4 dollars for a pound of steak or lamb and 12 dollars for a pound of chicken. All stocked up, we went to sleep early in preparation for an early day.