Have I finished my other posts from UK last year? No. Do I still have photos from Easter to get done? Yes. But, if I don’t start this now, will I ever start it? Unclear.

But what about the photos taken on film? Good question, maybe I’ll just draft this now and now publish it for a couple of months – after I process and scan the film.

The rest of the family had spent just under a week in the North Island, I flew directly into Christchurch in the South Island planning to meet everyone at the airport. I did pretty well, managing to beat their flight coming in from Auckland. Christchurch Airport is nice and small, and it was easy to find everyone.

Dinner on the first night had big retro.chinese.restaurants vibes. Printed photos of dishes on the walls, multicoloured prawn crackers. I wanted to take more photos, but also didn’t want to disrupt anyone else, of course.

Day 1

Off to find coffee. I lined up a hole in the wall that had a queue of people in puffer vests and lanyards.

Very Canberra.

Along with two bike repair stations at the airport, I managed to find some fancy bike rakes for securely securing your bike. Love a city that has good cycling infrastructure. They also have little bays at traffic lights for cyclists to wait, who can then proceed on pedestrian lights.

Side note: There is also a secret third option with regards to the film photographs – I got my first two rolls of colour film processed in New Zealand before returning home. There is a camera store in Wānaka that does same day C-41 processing. I dropped the rolls off on the way through between Franz Josef and Queenstown, the idea being I’d pick up the negatives in a couple of days, and not need to worry about those two rolls going through x-ray scanners on the way home.

A few hours later they had already sent me my scans.

I will scan the negatives when I get home, but was very impressed with their basic scans included in the processing.

Botanic Gardens

In the morning mum and I visited the Botanic Gardens. It was cloudy, but pleasant. There were a lot of ducks and some other birds around.

After about 20 photos it actually started raining, and quite hard, so we raced back to the car, and went back to the hotel to get our raincoats – which we had previously decided were not needed 😒

At this point the sun came out again, and it was even warmer than the morning, but we headed back with raincoats, just in case.

Something that will surprise no one, the gardens looked a lot brighter and more colourful under the full sun.

This time we also managed to find the conservatories, they were VERY warm inside.

Day 2

In the morning we headed off on foot to visit the Quake City – a museum that tells the stories of the two large earthquakes that struck the area in 2010 and 2011. Whilst compact, it was a very well laid out and informative museum.

Afterwards, I went for a walk into the city.

In the afternoon we went for a drive south, up to some lookout points above Governors Bay. The roads were tight, and there were a lot of cyclists. There were also a lot of hikers and trail runners once we got the top. We were glad we drove.

Day 3

This morning’s coffee was a little closer to the hotel, down a trendy street with restaurants and cafes, and a single barber shop for reasons I can’t work out. I think it was their version of Lonsdale St in Canberra, which to be fair also has a barber shop, so maybe it is a thing.

In the afternoon we had a drive out to New Brighton and the beach. It was cold, and windy, and we had coats on, but there were still people enjoying the sand and the surf.

Lunch was Thai. The place was decorated appropriately, though I did notice the royal portraits on the wall were not up to date, but I can hardly blame them.

Back in Christchurch, with the rest of the family in tow, we walked down the street to the Cardboard Cathedral. A (not so) temporary structure for the Anglican Cathedral badly damaged in the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011.

That was the last full day in Christchurch.

The next morning we packed up and headed off on a long drive to the Franz Josef / Waiau on the west coast.