Dec 14, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - Christchurch, NZ

Woke up to our arrival today in Christchurch, NZ. What a beautiful day !! Sunny, Warm, exactly what we expected the weather to be for this whole trip. We didn’t have anything planned regarding excursions today, so we headed into town. As we came down the gangplank, we saw the line for the free shuttle to town had a LONG line. As we walked up, a taxi driver came up to us and said… $5.00 pp if you get 8 people to fill a van and we’ll take you to town… Well, you know Peggy and I, that’s a deal.. we kept yelling at the other folks until we got 8 people to go with us. The Taxi driver we got was wonderful. She was so nice. We started off with her and as she got down the road, she said, “for $2 pp more, I’ll take you all the long way over the mountain (rather than through the tunnel), stop at the overlooks, give you commentary, and take you to where you want to go in town. We all said…. YES !!! Well, we all ended up giving her $10 pp, but she gave us an hour and a half tour, including a short trek on a walkway up a mountain in order to get the best pictures of the views of the countryside and the city. IT was amazing. So absolutely beautiful! I can see now why they chose this country for all the Lord of the Rings movies. It is breathtaking…. Well,  we finally got to town, dropped off some of the people, and she took Peggy and I to the Salvation Army store. YES… we are shopping !! WE left there with several long sleeve shirts, down vests, rain coat, and down jackets, scarves, etc. And, we didn’t have to break the bank… we barely spent any money at all. Christchurch is the kick off point for people going to Antarctica and here is the key location for polar research and data analysis at the International Center for Antarctic Information and Research (ICAIR) which was originally set up in 1992. This was a joint venture between New Zealand, the United States and Italy. We wanted to go there, but it would have been a 4 hour trip and we didn’t have the time. We started walking back to the center of town with all our goodies and found many vendors there. The center of town in Christchurch is the Cathedral Square. This is where all the local activity is centered. There was a young man playing bagpipes, another showing a crowd what he could do with a bullwhip, and more. There was also a small market with vendors selling sweaters, scarves, handmade jewelry, handmade wooden items, etc. Lots of stuff, but I still felt it was a bit overpriced. Well, all of a sudden a wind kicked up and within 20 min the temperature dropped over 20 degrees. Well Peggy and I pulled our vests out of our bags and put them on. Absolutely amazing. Well, we quickly tried to find where the shuttle bus was and decided to head back to the ship. We found out that a hail storm was coming. Needless to say, yes it did… Small pellets pelted the town, along with the rain and the freezing temperatures. We just stayed on the ship for the rest of the day. The doors to the gangway were one floor up from us so the winds were whipping down the hallways, so it was freezing…. Thank God we bought the clothes we did. Hope it’s nicer tomorrow. We head out to Picton, NZ.