we left melbourne at about 9am, and arrived in christchurch around 2.30pm local time. on the plane, while looking at the tour documents, i noticed that we were hiring a manual rental car, this was a problem, as i hadn't driven a manual in over five years (the only time i ever drove one since i got my licence), and alf had never driven one on his licence (apart from a 4wd in the country). anyway, i guess we were going to have to deal with it. on the plane as we were descending into christchurch, we looked out the window, and what a sight, mountains everywhere. we flew in over mt. cook, i've never seen a landscape like it before, it was amazing.
we had a good feeling about the photography opportunities that were going to come our way 
. we got to the airport, and went through with no issues, and then went to the bus waiting outside, to take us to the car rental location. we went through all the paperwork, and stuff, and a demonstration of how to put the snow chains on (fortunately, we never had to do this). first, we decided not to get the glass insurance, then just before we left, we decided that we should. being a manual expert, i took the wheel, and drove our way to the hotel, my heart was going pretty hard, and i was sweating a bit .
well, we made it to the hotel, with no incident, and just a couple of funny moments. fortunately for me, christchurch traffic is pretty quiet, so there wasn't that extra pressure. we checked into the hotel, and then went for a wander into the city.
it was pretty quiet, not a lot of people around, and the restaurants weren't too busy. we walked from the hotel to the downtown area, and took some pictures of christchurch cathedral, and it's surroundings. we went to a mexican place and had lunch, i had a burrito, and alf had some tacos. other than that, there wasn't much to do or look at in town, we headed back to the hotel.
alf decided to have a go at driving the car at night, with less traffic, and apart from a couple mishaps, started getting a feel for the nuances of a manual. we went back out for dinner after that, and couldn't really believe how quiet it was, all the restaurants were pretty much empty, and the streets were quiet desolate. we went to this chinese place, i had sweet and sour chicken, while alf had spring rolls (as he wasn't that hungry), had my first nz beer, a black mac, it was a dark smoky beer. i'll post a gallery of some of the beers we had later.
i bought a beanie from some store, and the shop keeper said it would probably be more lively on a thursday, which didn't matter to us, as we were leaving the next morning anyway. so with nothing much to do, we headed back to the hotel, to prepare for the long trip to queenstown.
#33 dtra (david tran)
Last edited at 7:54 26th-aug-2007
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