Our last full day in NZ dawned and the realization that our long awaited trip was coming to an end. We had breakfast and headed over to the International Antarctic Centre that is located next to the airport. Ch Ch is the center for almost all flights to and from Antarctica and the Kiwi’s Italians and the USA have a massive facility here. We book a combo tour ticket and had a 15 minute ride on a Swedish made all terrain vehicle named a Haggalund that is used in the Antarctic for transporting both equipment and people around in the inhospitable environment. We then took a look around the interpretive centre and watched as groups of Kiwi’s went into a room where there is snow and the temperature is kept at –15 degrees constantly. It was a grim reminder of what was in store for us back home in Canada within 48 hours! To get back into downtown Ch Ch we had to travel by our motel so decided to stop and pick up fish and chips for our lunch and eat in our unit. We left the car and walked downtown in about 20 minutes to Cathedral Square. We spent about 1-1/2 hours in the square finding a telecom wireless hotspot and uploading pictures and items to the blog. We walked along the river Avon that meanders through town and is flanked on the north by the Cambridge Terrace and the south by the Oxford Terrace. You can rent a punt on the river (large stream) and can be poled along for several hundred meters under bridges and through parkland. It is an idyllic site in a bustling modern city. We decided on a small Italian restaurant near our motel for our final dinner in NZ and had a wonderful meal while we reminisced about our last 4 weeks away from home. As much as we have enjoyed it we both felt it was time to get back and start working to pay for all this fun we have had. We said goodnight before the last sleep in NZ.
No comments:
Post a Comment