Tekapo to Christchurch (Days 23 - 26)

The day dawned bright and sunny and we were looking forward to seeing this lake (overlooked by the Church of the Good Shepherd) after seeing millions of photos of this very picturesque scene. However, before this we took what we thought was only a little detour (but actually added on an extra 2 hours) to see Mount Cook from an another viewpoint, after seeing it from the alternate side when we were at the glaciers. 

We drove towards the mountain, stopping en route to take photos, and we drove, and we drove, but still didn't seem to be getting much closer to the mountain. Eventually, we decided we had achieved our goal of seeing Mount Cook from the other side (and it was a very impressive mountain and all) and so we could now turn around. We then drove and drove until we finally reached our destination of Lake Tekapo. To say we were disappointed by the lake was an understatement. 

In our opinion, the town was highly touristy and overpriced, the lake was grey and nothing overly special (considering how many beautiful lakes there are in New Zealand) and there were a lot of diggers and other building equipment surrounding the lake and spoiling the view. The rather boring (not at all historical by European standards) church sat right next to a car park (which is conveniently not shown on anyone's Instagram photos), and filled with about a million Asian tourists, so for a while we felt we had stumbled into the wrong country by mistake. 

The rain then started and trying to make the best of a bad situation we headed to Tekapo hot springs and ice skating rink to see if our afternoon could be salvaged somewhat. It couldn't. The ice rink was closed and the hot pools looked like tiny man made swimming pools, not the natural hot pools I had been expecting. At this point we gave up and went to find some overpriced hot chocolate as it continued to pour with rain, coming to the decision that Tekapo was definitely not for us. We then decided to drive on to Christchurch, reaching our destination that evening. We had used up a lot of money in petrol all to see something that was definitely not worth it and it was the first place in New Zealand where we had really felt disappointed. (Although I have been particularly harsh here - maybe we didn't see it in it's best light since it was cold and raining? Maybe we had been spoilt by so much beautiful New Zealand scenery that this didn't live up to expectations?) 

The next day the rain continued and we headed into Christchurch, or specifically New Brighton Pier (perhaps based on Brighton in England but a bit less impressive?) The obsessive surfer of course headed into the waves (no surprise.) After this we were feeling pretty cold and with no sign of the rain abating anytime soon we went in to a shopping centre to find some shelter and found a cinema. We bought a lot of junk food (obviously not from the cinema but from a supermarket due to ridiculous cinema prices) and watched The Ghost in the Shell (a fairly average movie.) With the rain still hammering down there was little more we could do for the day and we headed to our campsite early.

The next morning the sky still looked grey but there was no rain which was great for us as we had booked a horse trek with Waimarakiki river horse treks for 10am. I was pretty excited and the obsessive surfer announced that he would be amazing and win all the races (even though we didn't come out of a walk.) Our horses were named Nemo and Dory and were very well behaved and we enjoyed ourselves (even though the scenery was kind of grey and boring) and our tour guide very kindly took me out for a canter around after dropping the surfer off (I think he prefers riding waves to riding horses.) 

We then went back to the beach and both had a little surf (although at our very different wave levels.) after this we headed into the city centre as we had failed to go there so far and were struck by how much the city had been devastated from the 2011 earthquake (something I had only vaguely heard of before visiting the city.) The whole centre seemed bleak and a little creepy. The cathedral in the main square was half rubble and had been left to become wild and overgrown. It was a very sombre sight but gave us a greater understanding of how much the city had suffered. The city took very little time to walk around as there is practically nothing there, and just as well we finished early as the rain started again even more heavily than before and didn't show any sign of stopping. (It continued all night and since the campground was next to a river this was a little worrying, although luckily we were still on land the next day.) 

The rain continued the next morning, although this of course was not going to deter the obsessive surfer. There were a number of surfers who were crazy enough to be jumping from the end of the pier into the water (which was a good few metres into murky brown water with a lot of very big waves.) The obsessive surfer made his way to the end of the pier and stood on the other side of the railings, but in the end his fear of heights won out and he took the rather more sensible (yet more strenuous) choice to paddle out rather than jump. I stood on the pier to watch them as the waves were pretty huge and definitely not suitable for myself and my banana board and by the end was completely drenched and very cold. 

It was then time to say good bye to Mr Banana (my very friendly and very yellow surf board) and send him off to his new home as we had fortunately been able to sell him before we left the country. We then decided to go get some burgers and two muffins each (one is not enough for us ever) as we were feeling pretty bored of the rain and needed cheering up (or so we told ourselves to justify our super cheat meal.) 

That afternoon the rain cleared (finally) and we wandered around Canterbury museum - it's free and was a good (i.e. not too strenuous) activity after eating a lot. We then went to a couple of other beaches around Christchurch and saw a rather beautiful sunset before heading back to our free campsite again by Coes Ford.