After a long drive we arrived in Christchurch at midday no problems. Wecleaned the camper van up and packed all our stuff in our backpacks beforefinding a hostel to leave our stuff in. We then headed for the Escape office (vanrental people) to drop the van back. When we arrived there was not a sole insite and after banging on the reception door and garage entrance for severalminutes we decided to give them a call. It turned out someone was on there wayover after having lunch! We had miscalculated though! We had counted 14 nightsand not days! We never read the paper receipt we were given and the camper vanwas actually due back the day before! Fortunately there was no late fee, wejust had to pay for an extra days rental which was fine by us.
Afterwards we went for a walk around Christchurch. The city was filled with loadsof outdoor shops, ‘adult’ shops and Asian food restaurants. It was a reallystrange mix and not like anywhere else we had seen in New Zealand! Wewent out in the evening for a few drinks as it would be our last night in New Zealand.The morning after we had a good sleep and chilled out as we had to catch ourflight to Melbourne Australia at 6am and were on a busat 3:30am o the airport. It was Sunday and I had packed loads of stuff to posthome the previous day only to find the post office was shut on weekends!Thankfully though, there was a tiny lottery kiosk in a shopping mall where wehad gone to go to the supermarket which also dealt with post. I had 5.5kg tosend back so I was so glad to get it sent as I did not want to lug it all theyway to Australia!
So farewell New Zealand! We had a quality, despite missing afew of the luxuries we could afford in South America,living in the camper van for a couple of weeks was a real good laugh. It wasnice to go wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted. Also, I enjoyed soup andbread a lot more than I thought I would! We did some action packed stuff, theSky dive has to be the highlight but I also really enjoyed the bungee jump andwould like to do both again I reckon. The scenery was beautiful, especially theglaciers, the blue ice and white snow in a valley surrounded by mountainscovered in trees. However, by the end of the trip I began to think everythinglooked the same and you take it for granted. We would see another hugebeautiful blue lake surrounded by mountains and forests and I would just notthink anything of it as you had seen so many before it! It was quite a strangefeeling, almost being sick of beautiful surroundings! The people in New Zealandwere great, everyone was really helpful and always took the time to speak tous, asking us about where we had come from and how the trip was going. Even atshops if there was a queue behind us they would take the time to have a chatand no one would care. It was a nice pace of life and a good change after thehectic South American cities. Time to move on now though and on to Australia!Sweet as!
