4.3. Christchurch
Bernd and I met on the airport in Christchurch and had a long bus ride through the city including a sightseeing ride with an elderly lady bus driver who took us for free to the village of lyttleton by the sea!
arriving at our nice hostel it was cold! 16 degrees only, coming from 30! for Bernd it was warm, coming from zero ;)
but then we had a nice sunny and warm day in Christchurch including B's first sunburn!
Christchurch is still under construction after the 2011 earthquake, lots of houses are torn down and a lot of empty space there, you can imagine how terrible this was and how much effort and money it means to completely rebuild the city center. 70.000 people left the city... it is so quiet and empty, especially after Asian towns and even Melbourne and Sidney!
but they already built a very nice container city center with lots of nice cafes and shops and you can imagine how nice and lively the city was before, as you see on old postcards, they even had a pedestrian zone and a tramway!
there is a small river running through the city and a big botanical garden, which together with the private gardens (no Mehrparteienhauerser, everyone has his own house, only one store, made of wood and most of them VERY simple and with thin walls and thin windows, no cellar, must be terribly cold in winter!; they somehow hide behind their trees and bushes), makes a really green impression, though the city area is much larger than you mnight think (what we noticed the next day when we had to get our van on the other side of the city)
we then spent the afternoon with a long and windy beach walk, it is always be good to be out of town!
6.3. Christchurch to Lake Tekapo
Our first day with the camper van!
it feels a bit strange for me to travel like this after weeks on public transport with so many people around me. gives us a lot of freedom and comfort, but also some kind of isolation. and I am cooking again after 3 months of eating out on the street! but as you know, I love the camper life.
the road led us southwest through a great huge empty wide endless landscape with yellow grass, lots of pine trees and thousands of sheep and through a bit of a rain (karin was sad) over the Burkes pass to a> rainbow! and the sun again! and there it iwas! wonderful turquoise shining lake Tekapo in the evening sun! yohoooo! I AM IN NEW ZEALAND! In the middle of the Fototapete!!!! I was sooo happy, poor Bernd had to hear it quite a few times ;)
we stayed two nights on great campsites by the lakes and went for a long hike over mt St John with an observatory (oih what a starry sky!!!! with the bright milky way just so close you think you might touch it!), with a great cafe on top, by the way (ja ich liiiiebe essen noch immer!) through the yellow meadows and along the lake including a final short bath in the lake with its incredible colour!
Sieht richtig gefärbt aus! Tolle Farben.
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