On to New Zealand

I had been told that New Zealand has beautiful scenery and it does but it also has wonderful, friendly people, and fun cities. No bats! We flew from Sydney and landed  in Christchurch on the south island. On the day we arrived, our group of 40 was divided into smaller groups and each group was taken to a private home for a home hosted dinner.  This is the couple who entertained us. They, and others, host these dinners for tourist groups as a fund raiser for various charities.  Our hosts were very gracious, made us feel really welcome, kept the conversations flowing and served us the best food we had on the entire trip.  I'm sure this personal interaction is one of the reasons I have come away with such a positive feeling about NZ.

 I didn't appreciate how near NZ is to Antarctica but on our second day we visited The Antarctic Center.  The vehicle below is the type used to travel around Antarctica and we were taken on a drive to demonstrate what it can do. It can go pretty much straight up and down steep hills, crawl over huge obsticals, bump along at a ponderous pace and get you where you're going eventually.  It is the most uncomfortable vehicle I have ever ridden in.  I really preferred the hot air balloon.

 We had some free time to tour Christchurch on our own.  The city suffered two major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 and there where still signs of the damage done.  One large church is still being rebuilt.  From one side it looks perfect but when you walk around it you see massive damage at the back. 

 As we were having lunch at an outdoor restaurant we saw black cars pull up and several men (looking like US secret service) standing around. Eventually, we saw the Prime Minister arriving to tour the museum next door to where we were as part of some event that day.  You can see her head beside the blond lady, who I believe is the mayor of Christchurch.  The PM is a young woman who is pregnant with her first baby.  Evidently during the campaign a couple of years ago she was challenged on the fact that she was young, married, and might become pregnant. She still won the election and seems to be handling the job very well based on some articles I read in local papers.  Did I mention that I really, really like New Zealand??

Sorry this picture is out of sequence.