We woke up the next morning to strong winds and heavy rain overnight and so decided to modify our plans from hanging around Kaikoura for a while to moving on down to Christchurch. This time we decided to take SH1 rather than SH70, but even so Karen managed to get me back for nearly running out of petrol on the way to Te Anau by returning the compliment. Anyway after coasting into a petrol station to fill up we carried on down the SH1 whereupon Karen picked up a speeding ticket. Ho, hum another one of those tourist taxes I suppose. Had a nice lunch in a place called Brew Moon just on the outskirts of the city. The scenery along this road could have been England in the summer apart from the odd field with emus roaming around in it!
We spent the afternoon wandering around Christchurch, but to be honest we were not that taken so we didn't really linger. We drove on to the airport and had a quick look in the Antarctic Centre (apparently Christchurch is an important staging post for almost all Antarctic activity) but decided not to pay the NZD40 each for the tour of the warehouses. The evening was finished off with a decidedly ropey Chinese meal and then we parked the van up on one of the approach roads next to the returns depot and went to sleep. It's pretty amazing that you can park for as long as you want on the side roads within about 500 yards of the international terminal (apparently the locals park their cars here when they go abroad on holiday or business!). Can't really imagine doing that at Heathrow...