New Zealand South Island (Nov 2010, Part 7)

Day 12 ( Back to Christchurch)

Sunny morning at the Moeraki Boulders Beach

Morning shot of the rocks

It was a bright and sunny day today. The weather seemed to be alternating between rain and sun. Since it was a sunny day, we drove southward again to revisit the Moeraki Boulders.  Initially we thought it was near, but ended up the distance was further than we expected. The big open air car park was sparsely occupied only with a few cars and campervans.  It was still early and even the souvenir shop wasn’t open. Weather was great for outdoor photo shoot. After spending 30mins there, we drove back to Oamaru to do a quick tour of the place. 

Little red house near the Blue Penguin Visitor centre

Somewhere near the old town centre

We went to explore the old part of the town and chanced upon a narrow road with both sides dotted with shops like bakery, DIY and some souvenir shops. This place still retain the historical aspect of the Oamaru town, which was considered Victorian. The pillars and architecture resembles that of European name.  Part of today’s destination included a detour to Akaroa, and so we started the drive up north towards Timaru where we planned to have our lunch.  The drive on the highway 1 was quite dull as compared to the part of highway 1 between Christchurch and Kaikoura. Maybe the road runs more inland along the coast rather than just beside the coast.

Halfway driving up north, we took a side detour into a small town which I think it was called Waimate. We were attracted by some brown tourist sign board indicating an attraction so we thought might as well just take a look.  But in the end, since it was Sunday, there was a town fair and this was the first time we ever visit a local town fair. We just followed the crowd into town, found a quiet parking place away of the place and just walked back. There were a huge crowd of people at the town fair. It was like a farmers’ market when the locals brought out their wares from clothing, to honeys, merchandise of art and pottery and many more. We were attracted by the crowd of people getting their ice cones and hotdogs and sandwiches.  This was the first time in New Zealand we saw some many people gathering together ever since our road trip in South island. We got ourselves some hotdogs and ice creams to cushion the hungry before lunch. Yes it was just 10:30am but we started the day early. Bought some local honey  before we head back to the car.

Town of Timaru

We reached Timaru, a bigger town with more shops similar to that of Queenstown, but has a bigger population than the latter. Timaru itself is a major port in the southern Canterbury Region.  From here, one can take the highway 8 and drive inland towards the Mckenzie Country which includes places like Mt Cook, Lake Tekapo , Twizel and Queenstown.  I did have an urge to drive inland to see the ice mountains of Mt Cook before leaving NZ as the day was our last full day. But since we had planned for a short visit to Akaroa , we just proceeded heading north.  Akaroa was not really a place that we could say on the way to Christchurch, it was actually further than that if you were to come from the south. The only road that leads to Akaroa was highway 75. From highway 1, we reached the town of Burnham and turned right towards Springton and Lincoln before reaching Tai Tapu on highway 75. From there it was  all the way to Akaroa.

Toilet stop at Little River

It was about 4:45pm when we took a break at Little River, a small settlement along highway 75.  We weren’t sure how far Akaroa will be but we just pressed on and see how near were we. Akaroa was built on an ancient volcano with a huge bay in the middle of it, is a historic French and British settlement in the past. We heard quite good reviews of the place and so thought of a quick day visit. But look at our watches it was already 5pm and we haven’t even see the bay yet.

At the scenic summit road looking down at the Akaroa Bay

The scenic Summit Road

On the summit road

We started the ascend on highway 75 up the mountain road, climbing higher giving us the feeling that we were almost there. It was like reaching the top of the crater to see what was on the other side. The road was narrow and winding and finally we reached the top. The view of stunning and by seeing a scenic tourist route, we took that instead of following the rest of the traffic that headed directly to Akaroa. This scenic route on map is called the summit road and it actuals run along the high mountain tops to descent into Akaroa from behind.  The view was stunning here and we could see the bays below us. The road runs along sheep grazing grounds and at times we surprised a few unaware sheep having their snacks of the grass. We drive along the summit road until 5:30pm which we felt there wasn’t enough time to get to Akaroa and back to Christchurch for dinner. We spent a while longer enjoying the view and made the reluctant drive back the way we came.

Airport Christchurch motel

Our rental car at the end of the road trip.

Our last night accommodation was at the Christchurch Airport motel, so we just took the route to get to the airport and the motel will be just nearby. Easy target for a destination, but as we got closer to Christchurch, we made some wrong turn and ended up in the suburbs and we were driving along some residential area. First time we took out our iPhone and turn on the GPS to see where we were. Objective was to get back to highway 1 that passes the airport. After some turning all our the place, we were finally back on highway 1 and once we turned into Memorial Ave, we were at the motel to do our check-in.  It was already 7pm after we got our keys and knowing the shops close early, we headed straight into town for dinner.  

Authentic Ramen at the shop at Christchurch

Gyoza !

Dinner was Japanese food and we could say this Japanese café has some standard. It  had some real authenticity in the food.    We were halfway into our food where the staff told us last order. Luckily we came to town early if not we would be missing the nice food before flying home the next day. It was around 9pm when we left the restaurant and decided to walk about the cathedral square. It was Christmas and we took some pictures of the big Xmas tree and the famous Cathedral.

Christchurch Cathedral just before the destructive earthquake

 
 Never did we know that that was the last time we would be see it, as after the big earthquake that struck Christchurch in 2011, the entire cathedral had to be demolished because of safety as it was deemed to be structure unsound. We were back in the motel around 10pm, did out final packing of the luggage for next early morning flight home. Again it was another multiple transit before we reached Singapore.

Day 13 (Flight home to Singapore)
 

Sunrise taken from the plane. Looks like Kaikoura below

Making the landing at Auckland for transit to Sydney