Kia Ora!
Today started off with a bunch of phone calls back home to the good ol’ U.S. of A. to talk to our families and loved ones to wish them Merry Christmas. Unfortunately our attempt at laundry last night left us with a Washer/Dryer combo full of wet clothes when we got up in the morning, so we frantically dried our clothes on the towel rack with the room/towel heater… After a couple of hours of doing this we had some nice clean and DRY clothes and we went out to grab some grub. Nina and Antja found an excellent New York style bagel shop near our hotel in their exploration of the city, so we got some sweet bagels for brekkie. Then we went to see the Putangirua Pinnacles (featured in the Lord of the Rings) about two hours away from Wellington. The way to Putangirua Pinnacles required us to drive through some more of the windiest roads that I have ever driven on. These roads were nuts and the New Zealand government has somewhat unrealistic expectations for the speeds that can be maintained on them…100 km/h on roads that we barely managed to managed to go 30 km/h!!! At the Putangirua Pinnacles we walked up a dry riverbed for about 45 minutes and were treated to some cool pinnacles formed in the canyon resulting from constant erosion of the ground. After quickly taking a few pictures from the area, we scuttled back through the riverbed following the slowly running river and had a bit of fun jumping back and forth across it. Heading back to Wellington, we grabbed some grub at Subway and had our “fresh” sandwiches with “salads” piled upon them.
Once in Wellington, we filled up our Highlander, returned it, and caught a quick flight to Christchurch on board VH-VGU, a Jetstar A320. The flight covering a little less than 200 miles lasted a whopping 35 minutes. After arrival, we picked up our rental car (in a bit of déjà vu)—a Toyota Highlander. We then did some shopping for breakfast and lunch items at Countdown (a grocery store chain) and headed to our cool accommodations for the evening, but not first without grabbing dinner at another US establishment--McDonald’s (Yes they have them here and they are awesome! The food is similar to the US; however, they have a whole McCafe section complete with cold case and are swanky compared to the US). We checked into our hotel and turned in early to prepare for our long drive.
