Road Trip! Part 2

Thursday Jan 10

I woke up at…. you guessed it! 6:30 AM. My alarm was set for 7, so I rolled over a bunch and pretended to keep sleeping until then. Not the greatest. We had the day to do whatever we wanted on our final leg of the road trip to Christchurch, so we took our time packing our bags and getting ready. We finally rolled out and stopped at our first tourist attraction of the day. This attraction, the Church of the Good Shepherd, was only HALF A MILE AWAY. We could see it from the restaurant the night before! Well, not really, because we weren’t seated near a window, but if we were, then we would! But we drove on up, walked over a cute footbridge so Nolan could take pictures of it, and then checked out the church.

Church of the Good Shepherd, Tekapo

The Church of the Good Shepherd was built in 1935 as a Catholic church (what whaaat!) and still functions as a church for interdenominational Christians. However, Mass is still celebrated there by the priest of the local parishes. Visitors are welcome to walk around the grounds but not go inside unless it was for worship. I was not going to miss the opportunity to use my Catholicism to my advantage, and also it’s never a bad idea to stop and pray for a bit. It was a tiny, yet beautiful, building, with a nice garden surrounding it and other grounds currently under construction.

Don't be fooled by the photo size.

Finally, we hit the road again! After an hour or so we stopped in Fairlie, at the suggestion of the hotel bartender, and had breakfast at the Fairlie Bakehouse. What a good suggestion! They had egg bakes and pastries and donuts and, my personal favorite, meat pies of all kinds. From Fiarlie, Nolan took the wheel again and we drove onward for a few hours until we were desperate for a bathroom break. After some wrong turns and differing directions from locals, we found a park with a public restroom. This wouldn’t ordinarily be a noteworthy side trip, except this part had a GIANT hamster wheel for people!! Naturally, I had to try it out. It was a little difficult to keep my balance, and stopping was a little interesting, but overall it was pretty neat.

 

We arrived in Christchurch around 2 PM. Mark was on his Edoras tour until 6, and the rest of the gang was swimming with dolphins until about 5:45. We decided to have a snack and a walk of the mall down the street before heading to Hagley Park. This park is HUGE. We spent about 2 hours there, but we only went to the botanical gardens, which comprise about a fifth of the whole thing. Oh, we also only walked around the southwest corner of the botanical gardens, so that might indicate how big this place is. Mom was in a really great place in her book, so Nolan and I left her on a bench somewhere and explored. By explored, I mean we looked carefully at the map, plotted a course, and then deviated from the course almost immediately. We found Mom again, took her phone, and then walked our route once more, this time taking  glamour shots in all the foliage.

Eventually, everyone returned from their excursions and we met up for shawarma for dinner.