Saturday nigh had the most beautiful full moon and with the lack of city lights in the morning we were awaken by the brightness of Jupiter. What a beautiful night sky. We spent Sunday wandering around the town of Graytown. There are lots of antique shops and a smattering of boutiques as well. We found a lovely café on the main street and had lunch, then headed back to the house to clean it and pack up.
It’s fresh plum season and we went to a place with a wide variety of plums—some not found in the US. We bought some for Peter’s friends and then took a pile back to Elizabeth and Michael. (I must admit the pile was quite a bit smaller when we arrived at their house.)
We decided takeaway Thai food was just the answer, as Elizabeth had spent the day canning half her garden. The array of jars was quite a sight.
Our ferry was early Monday morning, but Elizabeth would not hear of our taking a cab. Talk about fabulous hosts!
It was a beautiful crossing without a cloud in the sky. At Picton we then took a bus, as they were working on the railway tracks, to Kaicura. We decided to stay and swim with the dolphins, since our next bike trip did not begin for another day and we had already really explored Christchurch.
We stayed at Bendemere, a lovely B&B with great ocean views. The little town is not much, but they did have a bike store and one of my cables had snapped—we sure have had our share of bike issues this trip! Dinner was pizza, and salad—just average.
The next day we rod our bikes to the dolphin swim place and were fitted with wet suits, snorkels and masks. Then we boarded a bus and driven to the other side of the coast (20 minutes) We rode out into the open waters (in a fairly rough sea. for around 40 minutes and then about ten of us slid off the back of the boat into this huge pod of dolphins. The aim is to make as much noise through your snorkel to attract the dolphins and get them to play with us. It was totally amazing. They were all around us. They just love to play. They don’t feed them or anything, they are just so curious. Both John and I found it a highlight of the trip.
However, as we emerged from our second swim, word had just come through about the earthquake at Christchurch. We headed back to shore and, like everyone else were just glued to the TV.
It is just awful. If we hadn’t stopped in Waikoura, we would have been in Christchurch, since that is where our next trip starts. Talk about the luck of the draw…
We stayed an extra day in Waikoura and have been in touch with our guides, who were in the middle of the quake. They are fine and have moved the start of the trip about 70 miles west of Christchurch. We arranged a shuttle to the Christchurch airport and B&R sent a car back to pick us up. At this point we didn’t know how many of our group have made it—
When we went north from Christchurch, we left our bike cases and most of our clothes in our hotel, which is in the cordoned off area. We have no idea if we will be able to get them back… so the adventure continues.
Stay tuned!
Thank you all for your notes. It does make us feel less far away! It’s scary and we are due to fly out of Christchurch on March 4th (not a chance!) So, we’ll see what happens!
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