Happy Easter!

After a lovely dinner with some friends on Thursday evening, we got up early on Friday and drove to ChCh (the kiwi abbreviation for Christchurch). On the drive down we followed the east coast and got our first glimpse of the Southern Alps. 

The Kaikoura Ranges were snowy and it was beautiful to see them set right next to the roaring ocean. We arrived in Chch before sunset and wandered around the Botanic Gardens and Arts Centre. 

The Arts Centre was the original University of Canterbury, and the buildings and courtyards were beautiful and reminded me of my visit to Oxford University in the UK. We did drive by the 'new' university site, which is a 10 min drive from downtown, and although it had many beautiful trees throughout the campus, the buildings were all the typical 70's style.  

Knowing that I have a job at the hospital starting soon, we decided to splurge and stay at the YMCA hostel for both Saturday and Sunday nights. The hostel was across the street from the Botanic Gardens, which are huge and very beautiful.

Saturday was our designated shopping day since I still needed new hiking boots. The Nelson stores did not have many boots in my size, so we shopped and shopped and hours later I finally decided on some boots. That evening we drove to Sumner, a nearby seaside holiday town, and had fish n' chips for dinner. There are little fish n' chips shops everywhere in NZ, and we've started to figure out how to tell which ones are the good ones. It's a relatively cheap dinner, with the "fish of the day" usually around $4/fillet and a scoop of chips (plenty for two) for $3. 

On Sunday morning, we packed up and left the hostel early. First we drove to Victoria Park, on the hills outside of Chch, where we would have had a beautiful view of the city if it hadn't been covered in a blanket of fog and mist.  

After leaving the park, we came across this was a quiet spot,  just outside of Chch.

We continued on to Akaroa, a little town by the sea, reached by driving through idyllic rolling green pastures. There were quite a few groups of French settlers in Akaroa in the 1840's, and the town has embraced the French heritage. It felt like a taste of home to see signs in French, but it also seemed very out of place. 

The town is a very popular holiday spot and it was incredibly busy by the time we got there. On the drive out, we passed long lines of cars heading there, which made us very glad we were leaving.

We drove further south and inland to Lake Tekapo, about 3 hours away from Chch, home of the Mt John Observatory. That was also a beautiful drive and we arrived before sunset and had a few hours to take in the gorgeous views. 

This is Lake Tekapo, from the outskirts of the town.

We were meeting up with a professional astronomer, who Steve happened to meet last week in Nelson. He had invited us to visit the observatory and so we were able to see the inner workings of the research area, and stay the night in one of the guest rooms. Above, Steve is standing next to the 1-metre telescope adjacent to the research area.

The research centre (in the foreground) was originally a US spy satellite tracking station. On the higher peak in the background, there is the MOA ("Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics") telescope jointly run with a Japanese research group, a couple smaller professional telescopes, and a little cafe and seating area.

The 360 degree views from the observatory hilltop are amazing. Unlike the bright green farmland we often see, this land is covered in dry grasslands that stretch for miles over rolling hills and end in the majestic mountains of the Southern Alps. The observatory grounds still had some snow on the ground from a few weeks ago. 

Lake Tekapo is a small town, but has received a lot of press in recent years due to their efforts to create a 'dark sky preserve'. The town has a lot of new, modern-looking houses being built, and a lot of the motels were full for the long weekend. There is a beautiful little stone church on the edge of Lake Tekapo, built in 1935 as a place for people to worship in the midst of the peaceful beauty of the area. Unfortunately, this is now little more than a tourist stop, and on Easter Monday, there was little peace to be found here. 

We passed by so many beautiful green fields on the way home, I finally had to just pull over so I could take at least one non-blurry picture.  Driving here is always a bit of an adventure... Kiwis are so used to their twisty roads that we regularly find at least one or two cars queuing up behind us.  Tailgating doesn't seem to be considered an offence or sign of rage, it's just what everyone does, and in the best spirits too. Rarely do we see any signs of roadrage or anger, just a friendly honk-honk as we pull over to let cars zoom by us.  Anyway, we are back in sunny Nelson now, and hope to put my new boots to good use this coming weekend. Abel Tasman National Park is only an hour away from here and we are keen to explore it!