New Zealand Reflections: Christchurch to Geraldine

Our first sleep in Christchurch "Top 10 Holiday Park" - great place. Not only because it was only few kilometres from the place where we picked up our motor home but also close to grocery store. At first I thought that Holiday Park was just a name but its the same thing as what we call campground/RV sites. These parks include free showers, kitchen facilities, laundry and some of them have swimming pools (indoor, outdoor) etc. This one in Christchurch was really great.

After 10 hour sleep I was ready for our adventure to begin. After breakfast we were off to locate i-site center (pronounced "sintr" - meaning visitor center). Finding one in downtown was not as easy as we thought, and even GPS had few troubles. We realized that the city has not yet recovered since the last big earthquake. Lots of construction everywhere, roads closed and broken, building demolished and sites being prepared for new buildings. Old churches closed and in the process of restoration. The Cathedral is still being restored and it looks its going to take a while. We have managed to visit a museum, walk through Botanical gardens, drive through the University of Canterbury and take few photos from the lookout. Even though we haven't spent too much time in the city, I had a very nice feelings about it. It is old city, but you can see lot of new projects on the way. What was really interesting is the vegetation - you will find huge chestnut trees, oak trees and palm trees (at least they look like palm trees). The Botanical Garden was really awesome.

The countryside is very flat around Christchurch - farmland and lots of sheep and cows. Crossed few big rivers that were either totally dry or very little water. They told us that its been a exceptionally dry summer and that they are really needing the rain. Our day ended in Geraldine at Grumpy's Holiday Park. Wow, farm in the middle of nowhere. Very quiet and lots of moths. A lot, believe me. But no mosquitoes :)).

Driving on "right" side - Martin is really awesome, no problems at all. Good thing that I am not behind the wheel - First roundabout and I would be going the wrong way :)

Our home on wheels for 22 days

Facilities in Holiday Park

Showers

Laundry

Kitchen

Breakfast

Downtown Christchurch - city mall - all stores are done from containers - looking really good. You can imagine Martins excitement. Martin has a better picture but I can't use it at this moment.