Maggie here. I promise Lance will be picking up some posts in the next couple of days so you'll get a break from my voice. We are back from our two weeks sleeping in a van, hauling it around the South Island. We had an amazing time but I've never been so ready for a vacation to be over. James takes up way more than his fair share of a van-sized bed.
Be warned, I will use the word 'gorgeous' or its synonyms an excessive amount of times through the next 15 posts. So grab a glass of wine and feel free to take a sip whenever you see the word gorgeous. I bet this blog will appear better with every entry!
We departed Auckland for Christchurch on December 19th. Lance did a half day at work so I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get the car and baby loaded with everything for the trip. We had most of it done the night before, but you know how the morning of a trip gets. I was very proud of myself- 5 minutes early to pick up Lance from work. I was ready to get a move on, but Lance was pretty chill about the whole thing. I haven't departed through the Auckland airport yet, but he's done it several times with work. It was AMAZING. Now I know why he wasn't stressed.
7 Reasons Why Flying in NZ is Easier Than the US
1. Check-in is all done by kiosk, so you don't have any lines to wait in.
2. You tag and put your own luggage on the conveyor belt, hence the no-lines thing.
3. You don't have to take off your shoes or jackets!! I appreciate this even more since we had our hands full with James.
4. No liquid restrictions! You want to go through security with a smoothie? Do it.
5. You don't have to show any I.D. to anyone, so you aren't fumbling with showing I.D. and ticket at every step. This was a bit strange for me. Since we checked in at a kiosk, how do they know you are the person on the ticket? You just have to have the correct credit card to check in. This was all domestic, though, so I'm assuming international travel is a little more strict.
6. Your checked luggage is ready on arrival very quickly. We didn't wait more than 2 minutes both flights and these are pretty small airports so it's not like it took long to walk from the gate to baggage claim. We were watching them load the luggage onto the plane and the system was ingenious. They have the bag carts and bag tugs driving around the runways, but instead of loading and off-loading each individual bag like they do in the USA, they have a conveyor system that just loads the whole stinkin' cart. When they unload, the cart lowers onto wheels already attached to the bag tug and off they go. Easy peasy.
James made sure we were up-to-date on safety regulation (ok, ok, he just wanted to suck on it) then promptly fell asleep.
Flying over Christchurch, it reminded me a lot of Denver. It is nestled right where flat-nothingness meets a mountain range. Only greener.
After an 1.5 hr flight we landed around 2 p.m., so after checking into the Parkview on Hagley we had the evening to wander the streets of Christchurch. In February 2011, Christchurch had a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, which damaged a significant portion of the city's buildings and killed 185 people. Even today you can still see the aftereffects in the condition of the buildings and general quietness of downtown. Many buildings are still abandoned and boarded up, and some historic buildings that have costly repairs and rely on donations are still in ruins (like the Cathedral in the main square).
They still have minor earthquakes on a pretty regular basis down there.
But despite all of this there is a calm, friendly vibe to the city. We weren't there for very long, but I enjoyed myself. There are rebuilding projects all over the city, and local artists have worked hard to make the construction itself art. The main square with the ruined cathedral is surrounded by cool seating areas, banners, and artwork. On Fridays (like the day we were there) they have Food Truck Friday. Lance and I were in heaven. We did two circuits before finally deciding where to go. We had a tough time of it because each one looked more delicious than the last! We topped it off with some ice cream mixed with fresh berries. Mmmm. This country knows how to do dairy.
Hagley Park is the large city park that also contains the Botanic Gardens. Lance allotted me 3 botanic garden visits for the trip (since I tend to get a little over-exuberant about botanic gardens) and I used up one of them for the gardens in Christchurch. They were lovely and we had the perfect weather for it.
It sounded lovely standing inside the Peace Bell. James got a kick out of it!
Staying at the hotel was LUXURY for us. Air conditioning! A bathtub! I was in heaven. And included in the deal was room service breakfast.
After a lovely breakfast, Lance picked up our Spaceship Beta 2 named Maxima and we were on our way south to Dunedin!
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a campervan (as we were before moving here), it's pretty much what it sounds like, to varying degrees of plushness. It's a vehicle you can sleep in. Ours was pretty much the lowest end of the spectrum without just getting an old station wagon and sticking a mattress in the back. We were very limited on what type we could get because of James's car seat. Most three-seaters had them straight across the front, which wouldn't work with his rear-facing car seat. This was one of the few companies that had the third seat behind the driver instead. There are larger vehicles that can seat 4-6 people, but they are significantly more expensive and unwieldy on the winding roads we had ahead of us. So the middle seat flips around to accommodate the foot board of the bed. Underneath the mattress was storage for clothes, kitchen items, and a mini-fridge. The nice thing about this particular van is it has two batteries. The second battery charges while we drive and the fridge and lights run off of that even when the car is off at night. It was always interesting converting it over to the sleeping configuration at night because everything in the back, including his carseat, had to move to the front, and we had to make sure we were very prepared and had our toiletries and change of clothes before anyone laid down, since our stuff was under the mattress. Baby sleeping= no clean underwear for me!
Stay tuned for Lance's version of our drive to Dunedin!
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