Hello readers! Today we allowed ourselves to sleep in a little bit to top off a nice night of relaxing that we had last night. We packed our gear into the car and hit the road to our next destination; the biggest city on the South Island, Christchurch.

We had a short stop for breakfast about half an hour outside of Tekapo at a place call the Fairlie Bakehouse. The Fairlie Bakehouse is an extremely popular bakery in Fairlie. In fact, its the most highly reviewed bakery in NZ for their pies. We grabbed the pork belly with apple sauce pie and a cream and jam bun. The pie was absolutely delicious. It was big, the pastry was soft and the pork was tasty mixed with the apple sauce gravy. It also had a bit of pork crackling on the top which was a lovely touch and unique. The cream bun was also delicious.

After that it was about a two hour uninteresting drive to ChCh. Very highway-ish and lacking of the views that we have come to expect from this country. We eventually made it but still had a few hours before it was time to check in to our accommodation so we sat down for lunch at a place called Smokey T’s. Smokey T’s is one of them American BBQ style places, we debated if we should change our itinerary and just go somewhere else as we feel like we have had quite a bit of meat on this trip. We decided to still go there though.

The place had a bit of a vibe going. Out the front they have the big smoker so you can see them at work which is pretty cool. Then inside there is cool art on the walls and it was busy for 12pm on a Tuesday. A bit too loud actually. The building looks like a converted mechanics so its basically a warehouse which means the acoustics are loud which made it a bit uncomfortable. We ordered tacos with smoked jerk chicken and waffle fries on the side. Aimee didn’t like it much because it had coriander but it was pretty nice really, quite flavourful. The waffle fries were not bad either. Nice and crisp.

We still had a bit of time so we thought we’d bring our activity for the day a bit ahead. We drove about 15 minutes to the outskirts of the city for the Christchurch Gondola. This is the third gondola we have been on in New Zealand (QT & Rotorua on our first NZ trip). We are sad to say that the ChCh gondola is for sure the worst of all three.

The views over ChCh were pretty average really. You couldn’t see much of the city and it was pretty generic hills and shores. It was better than being at work though. They had a time tunnel ride where you get into a little rollercoaster-type car and go through a little attraction talking about the history of the Canterbury region. It was okay.

We drove into the city and checked into our accommodation. We are staying right in the city above the tram terminal. We spent some time recovering in the room before going on a bit of a walk around ChCh to get a bit of a look at things and to get our bearings. Christchurch is actually really nice. We are exploring it properly tomorrow and are really excited to do this.

We didn’t have any activity planned for tonight and we had some free time so we thought we’d go and catch a movie. We ended up at the Hoyts at ChCh Entx which is bran new and awesome. We saw a romcom Ticket to Paradise on the Xtreme screen. The theatre is enormous – there would be have to be 200 seats in this theatre. There was about 8 people watch the movie. The seats also reclined and were super comfortable. The movie was about as you’d expect for a romcom. George Clooney and Julia Roberts reuniting for the first time since the Ocean series was nice.

After the film, we walked a few blocks to our dinner venue. Tonight we ate at the Little High Eatery. It is a collection of casual dining restaurants with a shared dining area. Kind of like a food court – except trendy and actual good food. It’s hard to explain but it has such a great vibe. We ended up getting a wood fired Margherita pizza and a poutine. Both of which were excellent. We grabbed a gelato after dinner as well. Aimee got honeycomb and Ronnie got Good Goody Gumdrop flavour (bubblegum with gummies). Both delicious. It was a really great dinner spot.

After that we walked the three blocks back to the hotel and settled in the for the night. A big day in Christchurch is on the cards tomorrow.

Spending:
Bakery Breakfast – $22
Lunch – $42
Milkshakes at gondola – $12
Cinema – $63
Little High Eatery – $48
Total – $187

Much love,
Ronnie & Aimee