We woke up at Rakaia beach and had a leisurely morning sipping coffee and listening to the many birds nearby. After securing everything in our RV we started our one hour drive Christchurch, and more specifically to the Christchurch Gondola that overlooks the city.

An interesting, and from our perspective, accurate description of the Christchurch Gondola from their website:

“The Christchurch Gondola offers stunning 360-degree views of the city and beyond from the summit station situated atop the Port Hills. See the snow-capped Southern Alps, sprawling Canterbury Plains and the sparkling waters of Pegasus Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Explore the many walking tracks amid fresh mountain air, learn about the history of the area and indulge in a spot of shopping at the Shop at the Top gift store. Sit back and relax with a snack from the Red Rock Cafe and take in the spectacular views. A must-do family-friendly experience perfect for locals and visitors alike.” – Chritchurch Gondola website

After taking in the views from the summit station, we headed out for a small hike to the nearby peak of Mt. Pleasant and were rewarded with views of the huge Pegasus Bay surrounding the port Lyttelton.

The views all around were stunning, and we’d highly recommend a visit to the Christchurch Gondola on any day, but especially a sunny or clear day, to see the views of the city, the ocean and the mountains.

We ate lunch in our RV in Gondola parking lot, which also provided us with a nice view of the Christchurch.

After lunch we drove down town, and had trouble finding parking. We ended up circling and circling further and further from downtown to find a place where we could park our RV. As an added bonus it was free. We finally found parking in a commercial area about a 30 minute walk from down town. The good news is that our to downtown included a stroll through what seems like the Central Park of Christchurch. Hagley Park is huge, and is a beautiful mix of gardens, open fields, and sports fields. It covers 1.65 square kilometres compared to the 3.4 squared kilometres of Central Park in New York City. It looked like part of the park was being prepared for a music festival for the coming weekend.

We’d booked an afternoon tram tour earlier in the morning over breakfast and enjoyed a tour of downtown Christchurch on a restored tram car that was 80 or 90 years old. The tour was in turn interesting, entertaining and educational. The cool New Zealand accent of the tram conductor didn’t hurt, but we learned a lot from the stories of what happened to individuals who lived through the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

On the tour, saw some of the remaining devastation from the earthquake several yrs ago. They’ve transitioned from stabilization to deconstruction, and then after that is complete, to re-development. From Wikipedia:

“A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011. The 6.2 earthquake struck the Canterbury region in the South Island, centred 6.7 kilometres (4.2 mi) south-east of the central business district. It caused widespread damage across Christchurch, killing 185 people in New Zealand’s fifth-deadliest disaster. Scientists classified it as an intraplate earthquake and a potential aftershock of the September 2010 Canterbury earthquake.” – Wikipedia article

After a wonderful afternoon exploring down town Christchurch we walked the 30-minutes back to the camper, and lucky for us much of the walk was back through the beautiful Haley Park. We then drover north, and a little ways out of town to spend the night before we headed home at the Top 10 Holiday Park Spencer Beach. Got our camper plugged into our RV site’s power supply, and then decided to do some exploring. We walked to the amazing near by beach for a pre-dinner walk.

The RV site was huge, with wonderful amenities, including up to date kitchens and showers. There were very view people at the park, so we had a lot of open space around us in the open field where we were parked. After dinner we starting packing all of our things up for air travel the next day.

The next morning we packed up the last few odds and end we needed overnight and then prepared our RV camper to be returned. We wiped the camper down from top to bottom, took out garbage, then emptied out the grey and black water at the campground. On our way to the Maui RV location right beside the airport we filled the RV up with diesel and exchanged propane tank for a full one. We then stopped at McDonald’s for a small breakfast so we wouldn’t need to do anymore cleanup in the RV. We also stoped at the One World store for some Kiwi-based sweets to bring home.

We had a couple of hours before our RV drop-off appointment so we decided to check out the International Antarctic Centre just a kilometre away from the Maui RV centre. We ended up spending all two hours we had at the Antarctic Centre. It was a much more interesting experience than we expected.

The blue penguins were very cute both in and out of the water, and the staff at the centre were there to answer and questions people had.

There were some husky’s that a trainer brought in and told us about the life of a working husky back when they were the only mode of transportation on Antártica (besides walking of course). Those who wanted to were given an opportunity to give the two beautiful husky’s a pat and scratch.

We also went into the “deep freeze room” to help people get a sense for what it would feel like visit the South Pole. When we entered the room there was a ready a couple of groups in the room, including one with people from India. The snow a cold seemed like a novelty to them, and when one of the staff noticed that our jackets weren’t done all the way up she asked us where we were from. When we said Canada, her said that she suspected we were from somewhere colder than India at least.

As it got closer to the time we needed to return the RV, we dropped Heather off at airport with luggage, and I drove the 1K to the RV centre, and went through the 30 minute drop off procedure.

I then walked the 1km back to the airport, past the United States Antarctic Program hanger on the Airport grounds.

After I arrived at the airport, Heather and I checked in our 1.5 hour flight to Auckland. We had a 3 hour layover before catching our flight to Vancouver. Unfortunately there was some sort of problem with the nose cone radar on the Air New Zealand Boeing 787 so our flight was delayed about 2 hours while they got it back in working order.

It was a 13 hour return fright to Vancouver with a 2-3 hour layover in Vancouver before our 15 minute flight to Victoria.

All in all we enjoyed an amazing trip to New Zealand. Another bucket list item that lived up to its reputation.