Up (not bright) and early today to catch the Wellington Airport Express bus from our hotel. The bus system is great in Wellington, once you have the Snapper card, and I’m glad we didn’t bother renting a car there. The Wellington airport is really nice, not too big, and they happen to also have our new fave bagel place, Best Ugly Bagels. Two days in a row here for breakfast, and I ain’t mad about it. After a quick and painless security check, we took our speedy 1 hour flight down to the South island for the rest of our time in New Zealand.
Sadly, the rain had started before we landed in Christchurch, so I quickly looked up indoor activities while Chris grabbed our rental car (Autoslash for the win on this rental rate, as it was sooooo much cheaper with our Costco card–this begs the question, do they have Costco in New Zealand???). Side note, Chris got to learn how to drive on the opposite side of the road, and every time we turn, he has to remind himself which lane he wants to go to. The hardest part so far has been that the turn signal is on the opposite side of the steering wheel, and you flick it the opposite direction than we are used to for a right/left turn. He says this is all practice for the Amazing Race some day. So, back to the activity for the morning–Right next to the airport, a legit 2 minute drive, is the International Antarctic Centre.
Though a little pricey as far as activities in NZ goes, it did have several fun activities for us to pass the time while the rain came down. And, as we have found in many places, there was a family price that was a little cheaper than our individual tickets would have been. First up was the Hagglund Field Trip, a ride in a course they have made to simulate what it would feel like driving in the ice fields of Antarctica. We went up steep hills, across a crevasse, through a swamp, and over bumpy stairs. This was so much fun, and thank goodness we had seatbelts, as it is a rough ride in these cars!
Next up, inside the building, was a simulated summer storm in a special room. You get outfitted with a winter coat and some shoe covers, then we went into a room with an igloo and some snow and watched the countdown to the “storm.” The lights begin to darken, and you can watch a board in the room that shows you what the wind speed and wind chill temperature are as the storm rages and the gusts come through. It is pretty incredible to think that this could be all day, every day, in the summer, and we quickly decided we are not built for this type of cold! We also noticed that at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the temperature today was -30F, and with the wind chill, it was -72F. Ummm, no thank you. From the storm room, we proceeded to the penguin viewing area, where they have several Little Blue Penguins both in roosting areas and out by their pool for you to see and learn about their personalities. We also took in a 4D movie, learned about flights to Antarctica and some of the scientists that work down there. Our last stop in the museum was to play with some adorable huskies, who were 1.5 years old. This may have been Aly’s favorite part of the whole morning!
Time to grab some grub, so we headed to Riverside Market, which was advertised as an indoor farmer’s market with several places to eat as well. It sounded like a combo food hall/farmer’s market, similar to the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco, so we popped over there. It really doesn’t have much of the Farmer’s Market aspect, but that’s okay, because we all found something different we wanted to eat there. It really does have a nice variety of food choices, and we ended up with dumplings for Aly, tacos for Chris, and chicken for me, which anyone who knows us probably could have linked us to our choices 🙂 Thoroughly stuffed, we somehow managed to find some room to try all of the licorice from the sweets store, and grabbed some desserts to go (Cadbury cream egg cheesecake-whaaaaa?!?)
The rain was still spotty off and on, so we decided to head to the hotel to check in. Aly liked that this hotel (Doubletree by Hagley Park) looks like a castle, complete with a “moat” in the middle. Our room was quite nice, with a separate living room area and, being on the ground floor, we had some cool double doors that led out to the gardens.
But, we were on a mission. For socks. And pants. Off to the mall nearby, as Aly forgot to pack socks and had been wearing mine, and Chris once again managed to travel in a pair of pants that got a large rip on day 2 of the trip. Did you know that Kmart is still a thing??? We found one, snagged some cheap socks for Aly, and then Chris decided on hiking pants instead of jeans. By the time we left the mall, the rain had stopped (yay!) but we were all pretty tired, so we took some cheap NZ wine and snacks back to the room and played some games. We’ll call it an early night and hope for nice weather in the morning. Would love to get a run through Hagley Park, and the plan is to check out the Cardboard Cathedral tomorrow before we start driving towards the West Coast.