North to South

Saturday 10th March 2007
Packed up and lounged around the pool this morning before the flight from Napier to Christchurch. I’d booked this flight between the two islands, separate from the round-the-world-ticket, to squeeze a bit more time in to do the things we wanted to see in NZ rather than just driving between the two islands (well, taking the boat as well, of course). Napier Airport must rate among the nicest in the world. It’s tiny of course but the most delicious genuine home cooked food (quiches, etc) in an airport that feels a bit like someone’s nice home lounge. The flight, on the 50-seater twin prop plane, was only half full and we were the only ‘foreigners’ on it, this not being truly on the tourist route. It was a beautiful clear day and as the pilot didn’t make it above 20,000 ft we could see everything we were flying over. Even Sid was happy on this flight.Spent the afternoon and evening in the city centre, and as promised, Christchurch – the ‘Garden City’ – is lovely and feels like a very nice small English city (population 600,000). It was the last night of Chinese New Year and so there was a huge ‘party In the park’ in the city centre. Had a lovely meal, sitting outside again, talking to some very nice New Zealanders. When we arrived at Christchurch we changed our return flight booking, as we thought we might, to spend a week in Mexico, on the Yucatan peninsula and the Mayan Riviera, rather than just flying straight in and straight out. In fact, we had to add around ten days to get seats, but as it cost us a whole £3.60 each to make this change, we think it will be well worth it.Fingers crossed, a real treat in store tomorrow.