THE SNOWY SOUTH
A short tour of New Zealand's South Island
Home to Christchurch
Sunday 4th May, 2025
Monday 5th May, 2025
Sunday 4th May, 2025
Raring to Go
ell, here we are again, off on our travels. We are currently relaxing in the Holiday Inn Express Hotel at (or near) the airport ready for a flight tomorrow to Christchurch NZ. This was a fairly spontaneous decision. We wanted somewhere fairly close and NZ filled the bill.
We are booked on a rather luxe tour of the South Island, Christchurch to Christchurch. The luxe-ness resides in its being a small group tour (20 max) in a full-size coach with individual "business class" seats which have tables, device chargers, music choices, drink holders etc, plus a certain amount of reclinability. Can't wait to try them. Still, really, a coach tour is a coach tour, however luxe!
t is not a long tour, ten days, but takes in Mount Cook (Aoraki), Queenstown, Milford Sound, Dunedin, all the iconic stuff. We have been here before, of course, back in 2002, but it is a lovely part of the world and it has been quite a while. We have never been to Mt Cook before and the Hermitage hotel sounds lovely, also the tour takes us to Larnach Castle, the only castle in the Southern Hemisphere. Built of course by an early resident with delusions of grandeur. Should be interesting to add to my Castle collection.
The flight is at 1035 tomorrow, so off to the airport for 0730. Oh boy! But better get used to early starts, tours are usually "bags out by 0630, leave by 0730".
Monday 5th May, 2025
ere we are in the rather swish Sudima Christchurch Hotel. We had quite a reasonable run-through, up at 0530, showers, checkout at 0630, a bite of breakfast, then on to the shuttle to the International Terminal. We got through the electronic checkin remarkably easily, but the queue for departures, security etc, seemed endless. But we finally got through although a very overbearing official unpacked Mac's carryon bag, leaving everything in a mess, which did not impress us.
Then the wait for the plane. It was full, but small, so did not take too long to load. We had a very good lunch of braised Angus beef with mash and roast veg medley followed by cheese and crackers (and a Lindor Ball).
Our Room, Christchurch Sudima Hotel
hen we got over NZ as opposed to the sea, we crossed the spectacular Southern Alps, their snowy caps glistening in the sun, absolutely wonderful. Arriving in Christchurch it could not have been easier, no crowds and well organised. A real contrast to Mascot. We zipped through the formalities and quickly met our shuttle driver. Also the couple we had met at Mascot, Bev and Geoff, were also met and we were whisked off about 14 ks to the Sudima.
We have a very swish apartment style room, with microwave, dishwasher etc, even a Nespresso machine. We have welcome drinks at 1830, then dinner and briefing. See what tomorrow brings.
Later:
Stopped Clock Tower
e had a lovely dinner in the company of our colleagues, only 16 of them - a very small group. Everyone seemed easy to get on with, mostly Aussies, with a couple of English people who we liked a lot. Their son has moved to NZ and they have been visiting him in Wellington and finishing their trip in the South before returning home.
he meal was enormous. Mac had spicy chicken, lamb shoulder and creme caramel, I had potato and spinach croquette, the lamb and strawberry gelato. Yummy, all of it!
We had a briefing, bags out at 0645, breakfast 0700, leave at 0800. Not too bad, up at 0630 will do.
We went for a walk after dinner to walk off some of it, but it was pretty cold. There is a clock tower opposite the hotel, which has stopped at 2:45. Maybe that is when the earthquake happened in 2011.
Ready for the off, tomorrow.
