Feb 19th : A night in Jail

Today is a big travel day, with almost 7 hours of driving. We went into town and Katie bought a wool sweater on sale at one of the sporting goods stores. We grabbed a quick breakfast to go, and said goodbye to Queenstown, it was a great city, one that would be near the top of the list for ideal places for us to live.



About 2 hours later we drive past lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapu, turquise blue glacial lakes with amazing views of Mt. Cook far off in the distance.





We stop for the obligatory Ice cream break in Geraldine, as suggested by the i-Site person in Queenstown. I had Honey Kiwi Fruit and Black currant blackberry, which fueled me for the rest of the drive to Christchurch.

Some of the road signs have a little too much information to absorb at 60+ mph:




We get to Christchurch, and park in front of our accommodations for the night, an old Jailhouse converted into a youth hostel. We check into our cell, and ask the front desk for places to eat for dinner. The Jailhouse was pretty neat inside. The door to the rooms are the original heavy solid steel plate doors, with the peep hole covered with a circular plate. Inside there is a bunk bed, and not much else. The toilet seats in the bathrooms are made of clear Lucite with barbed wire embedded in them. After looking around for a while, we head downtown for dinner.





City driving is where Judith (the GPS) really comes in handy, this was especially so in Christchurch, since the area we were heading to for dinner was a web of one way streets. We park the car and are a bit early so we decide to walk across the street and check out their botanical garden.





We eat dinner at La Cafe, I have a Lamb Burger and Fries, and Katie had Salmon Pasta. Then we raced each other on dessert, a slice of "Chocolate Nemesis". We head back to Jail and get ready for the drive to Kaikoura in the morning. On the recommendation of the couple from San Fransisco, we have booked a whale watch boat tour for 12:15pm, and it is about a 2.5 hour drive, so we shouldn't have to rush to get there. It will be nice to stay in Kaikoura for 2 consecutive days, even though we couldn't stay in the same hostel both days. It's also good to get a big portion of the South Island driving over with all at once.




The jailhouse is a little noisy, so earplugs come in handy yet again.