We went to bed early and I was expecting that we would all be up early but we all slept well until 8 am.
Now I don't know what about you but when I come to a new place the smell of the air is one of the things that I notice. When we got out of the airport we smelled jet fuel and such so nothing there. When we arrived at Wilderness camper van rental place and we got out of the car it felt like I was in Chilliwack, BC. Those who drove through Chilliwack know what I am talking about. Even if you are blind folded you can tell when you arrive in Chilliwack because it smells like manure, and this is what I smelled. It is quite flat around Christchurch and they say there is lot of sheep and cows in New Zealand so I guess it made sense.
We got the paperwork for the rental done and got a crash course on the operation and use of our motorhome. No drama there - very similar to our trailer except the hook ups are a bit different. It seems that here there are no full hook ups at the "holiday parks", only the power gets hooked up. The fresh water gets filled up as needed and gray water emptied. The toilets are cassette type so when full the cassette gets pulled up and taken to a dump station, emptied and then flushed - more on this later. I appointee Phillip as the official cassette technician but he kindly declined.
After we got to the holiday park and got settled we walked around a bit, walked to the mall and had late lunch, got a few groceries for supper and breakfast and had a nice shower. The holiday park had a really nice facilities - again more on this later with pictures. As I was changing my shoes by the pick-nick table by our motor home I realized that the "Chilliwack" smell was only around our motor home. To confirm this I went for a short walk and when I came back, sure enough, it was only around the vehicle that I smelled manure. I looked under and sure enough some one must have driven through some serious cow pies as the bottom of the vehicle is covered with this smelly stuff. I hope that we will get a good shower soon to wash this off. Luckily it isn't really bad and only noticeable down wind.
But seriously now - the smells of new places always make an impression on me. Here in Christchurch I felt like I arrived back in my home country of Czech Republic. As we walked around Christchurch I felt like I was transported back to the time when I was a kid in Czechoslovakia. I kept wondering what it is that makes me feel like this. Without mentioning anything, Phillip stated that he feels like he is in Czech Republic. We both came to a conclusion that the reason the smell reminds us of Czech Republic is because of the trees. There is a lot of deciduous trees, lot of oaks and the smell of the trees combined with the smell of the traffic in the city (mostly diesel) was one of the things that reminded us of Europe. But besides that there is a lot of other similarities. The vehicles are more like in Europe with most of them being diesel. The houses and architecture is more like in Europe - brick and stone buildings with metal and clay tile roofs.
We have only been here a day and half so this observation might not be very accurate but this is what I see. New Zealand is an interesting mix, feels like Europe mixed with Canada and Australia. I guess we will see try to understand it more later.
Walking and driving around Christchurch, we realized the magnitude of the 2011 earthquake. There are 1600 buildings that are still being fixed, restored or rebuilt. There are hundreds of road closures and detours as they are still repairing all the damage. Cracked walls, fences and retaining walls all over the place. We walked around the Red Zone and there are many piles of rubble, many excavators crushing concrete and removing debris, buildings tied together and supported with steel beams. It will be along time yet before everything is going to be rebuilt.
In the afternoon we drove up a big hill to Victoria Park and had a view of the city and the Pacific Ocean. We decided then that we will head south of town towards Lake Tekapo. We made it about 100 + kilometers south of Christchurch to Geraldine. Found a nice holiday park in the country.
Driving round today was a bit interesting, driving a motorhome on the wrong side of the road can be a bit of fun. To make things worse this vehicle is an automatic, but it fells like a manual and somebody is shifting very slowly for you. It doesn't have P position so first time I parked it I put it to what I thought was a park, but it was actually neutral and the van started to roll backwards. When we stop, I have to leave it in the gear and pull the e-brake. Driving around Christchurch is really challenging because of all the road construction, the lanes are narrowed down and corners are tight in many places where they are rebuilding. So driving was a real fun today. Later we got out on the highway and it got better. The good thing is that the trip computer is showing me that the average fuel consumption is 11.61 liters per 100 km. We will know the real mileage when we refuel.
It is 11:30 now and we are in bed. So in the morning I will go to the very very slow wifi zone here and will attempt to upload it. The wifi and Internet here is not as common as back in Campbell River and for some reason 80 % of my mobile data got used up today, still don't know how and the telecom coverage is almost nil here. Might have to upload later.
Good night.
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