Heading north

As we had gone as far south as we could and our time in New Zealand was fast coming to its end we had to begin our journey north.
The first leg was Sunday 13 February - a 9 hour bus trip to Christchurch via Dunedin.
As we are not known for too much forward planning Carol rang various backpacker hostels while on the bus.  They were all coming back as full - oh dear - maybe it was to be a park bench.  However, she finally struck gold when she phoned Drifters Backpackers.  We managed to get a double room and it was the cheapest she'd tried.  The guy who ran it was originally from Chelmsford!  He met us from the bus in the centre of town which saved a 15-20 minute walk loaded down with our packs.  The hostel was quite small but very homely and friendly and we immediately extended our 1 night to 4.  It seems that the earthquake in Christchurch had shut 3 backpacker hostels (they are often in very old buildings which were the ones most affected) and several hundred bed spaces had been lost in one fell swoop.  Not good for those hostels but good for business for those left who find they're full most nights.

Anyway, we had a good few days in Christchurch including one day catching the bus to the Gondola, going up it and walking around the crater rim (of an extinct volcano) and down into Lyttleton, and another day taking a bus trip out to Akaroa.  This place was originally settled by the French and lots of the street signs and shop signs etc are in French.

The weather in Christchurch was glorious but we had to continue our journey north.  This meant another long day - a 5 hour train journey to Picton and then the spectacular 3 hour (the first hour anyway) ferry crossing of the Cook Strait to Wellington.
After the lovely homely backpackers in Christchurch, the one in Wellington was a bit of a comedown, but we only used it as somewhere to sleep before catching the bus on 17th to Palmerston North to catch up with Andrew before leaving.