We left Wellington last night on an Air New Zealand flight for Christchurch. By the look of it we could have been en route to Fiji, Samoa or Tahiti as the plane was painted with exotic island fauna in a very bright shade of green. However, a trip to Christchurch to catch up with son Michael was what we had paid for, and that is where we ended up.
Michael collected us at the airport and dropped us off at our hotel, which is very centrally situated but obviously caters for young budget travellers. The size of our room was tiny, with a double bed hard up against walls on three sides. A flat screen TV was attached to the wall at the foot of the bed. There was an interesting space capsule of a bathroom in another corner. It was rather disconcerting that the room is windowless. The big draw card of this hotel is that it offers free Internet for savvy travellers in the bedrooms, and in fact had several terminals downstairs that people travelling without lap tops can use for free.
We woke up to a very foggy Christchurch morning and met up with old friends Colin and Merilyn. They had driven up from Dunedin to attend a show, and we spent several hours with them. After a while wandering around catching up on each other's news we ended up at the Art Centre for a coffee and muffin, still chatting. The fog had finally lifted and we came across some "Street Theatre". Seated on the tallest unicycle we had ever seen was one half of a comedy duo. As he pedalled back and forth keeping up a great line in patter, his partner jumped up on an upturned suitcase and the two of them juggled with clubs. The large crowd then watched in awe as the cyclist jumped down from his unicycle. "Bet you wondered how I was going to get down", he asked the crowd as he landed safely on the ground.
We walked along the meandering Avon River on a round-about way back to our hotel, and Colin and Merilyn came upstairs to view our tiny windowless room. We wondered if taller Colin would even fit in the bed without his head and toes touching the end walls. Luckily they were staying somewhere much nicer than us!! As we walked back downstairs to see them off, we still had plenty to talk about. Old friends are great friends, and we have known these two for a long, long time.
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