The mystery of a mystery rental car


In Auckland on the way to check in

We arrived in Christchurch to find the bag that contains the kitchen items necessary for a safe coeliac trip had broken it's second strap making it pretty useless as a container to go on and off a plane conveyor belt. It's been a good little bag, but the handles just aren't made for carrying the weight of what it contained.

Goodbye Little Red

Getting our car was a quick process and our keys were handed over and we found our car. In the words of Logan "how can they make a car look like an SUV, but have such a little boot?" A fair amount of swapping the order and orientation of the bags and feeling stupid and stupider with ensued. We made the bags fit, but not well and with no way of adding food comfortably......

We made it to some modest accomodation that did have a very large lounge in the family room. This gave space to relook and maybe a plan has emerged of fitting and saying goodbye to the dumb bag. We think it will work.

The bunks for the kids squeak with every movement

Then Eliza and I headed out to the supermarket to try and get some food and make a plan. Essentially it had to be us as all the boys were asleep once we got back.

The kitchen items always end up useful as knives, fry pans and chopping boards are always lacking. It took a few attempts to find a working element. We made dinner, the boys woke up, we ate, made the boys do the dishes (with no plug).



But they do offer a good sleep


Then we went off for a walk to see the sights of the city. A long and round about walk that may have incurrred an unwanted detour insued. The sights we the same we saw last time, but it was nice not to have the blazing heat on us this time. We did get to see the Queen Victoria Statue in it's entirity this time. It's facinating with it's four pillars of collonial strength; agriculture, horticulture, engineering and learning.

The arches

Admiring the statue

The very large Queen Victoria

Davie by the Avon

Jonty making music with a bull on a piano

Logan by the river


Many more was memorials later, walks along the river and then to a bull on a piano at the Art Gallery. 

Home time. Sore feet. After the poor sleep had the night before (don't make a Christmas cake to get it into the oven at 10:30pm, once you realise it takes 2.5 hours to bake), hopefully tonight will give some respite.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Ready to Go

Image
 The house is mostly tidy. The car is mostly packed. The arguements are mostly small. To get ready with another road trip and almost Christmas on the road we have another on-the-road momento to get ready and work on.  The plan is once we are on the road to add patches and badges and stuff to the pockets as we travel around to tell the story of the trip. But of course, we had 10 days at home. Tree decorating, making the Christmas Lego sets, and setting up all the candles. Ikea opened, we went to MOTAT lights, had a couple of washing days, a lunch at church, finished up at school and got onto all the jobs, jobs, jobs to be done. The 10 days so far Working out the bucket hats for Christmas Day. No paper crowns for us.  Sheet washing School ended on Auckland hottest day so far Christmas shared lunch at Church with some real and genuine and sad stories from a recent mission trip Washing, washing, washing. Oh it dries quickly! MOTAT lights and a slight miscommunication - where ...
Read more

Goodbye isolation, and hello again to people - Day 4 ends in Wanaka

Image
selfie time something about lunch wasn't good or fair   Our accomodation in Haast was lovely. It was nice to be in a house, in the middle of nowhere, with space and quietness. The birds were loudly awake by 5:30am and so then was I. We wandered off around 7am to see the lay of the town - police, fire and ambulance, a hall, a pub, a shop and a playground. We found the only place open which also sold coffee. It had typical resort prices - where coffee was properly expensive and food was cheap (not that we were buying any). We got home at 8, had cheese, ham and tomato toasties for breakfast, packed up and were on our way. We had planned the day yesterday, with it all mapped out and planned. The Haast Visitor Centre was the first stop. I liked the geology learning of it all as well as the commitment to wetlands. The kids weren't as excited. Then the quest for waterfalls. Roaring Billy Falls first. Cool place, with cool big glaciated pebbles, pretty blue water in the river and a ...
Read more

Returning home - day 11 - Back to Auckland

Image
We woke to the realisation that we were going home today. Jane didn't have the best sleep last night, but we figured that it would be sensible to grab a cup of coffee before making further decisions. Seeing as it was the last day, we invited Jonty along and he came and got a hot chocolate.  Back at camp, we gathered together the last of the food and carried it to the dining room to be eaten for breakfast. We had some very strange combinations, including cereals and greek yoghurt and corn on the cob, but in the end most of us were adequately filled and ready for our journey to Christchurch.  Packing took a little time, as we were down one suitcase from our flight south. Everything ended up packed appropriately and packed as tetris in the boot of the car.  It felt good to get on the road again, and we drove straight towards Tekapo, so that Eliza could experience some of the joy of this beautifully picturesque area. It is an incredibly stunning drive with the vivid blues and...
Read more