Thankfully Simone's suitcase only came to 18kg so her majesty found the mercy to allow the bags because the total was still under. But we had better make sure that next time the bags cannot go over!
We were also told that we cannot pick seats as we should have done that when booking the flight. News to me and it meant we could have been there a lot later. Oh well.
The plane was a smaller plane so it didn't have any Hobbit paintings on it. Lame! Strike 3.
And to top it all off our flight was delayed for an hour due to the plane encountering heavy head winds on its way to Perth.
So when we finally made it onto the plane and sat down, it looked like our trip was under a bad sign. We'll see. The food was surprisingly good, so that was a plus. But I'm not sure that eating at 3am Christchurch time would help with the whole jetlag situation....
Our pilot announced joyfully that "we're making great time" and of course I immediately thought of George from Seinfeld when he announces in the car that "we're making incredible time here!". That mean that even though we were delayed we arrived slightly earlier than planned, at 6.14am.
Immigration, baggage, money changing (should have done it in Perth for a better rate!) we got out of the airport at around 7.30am and took a taxi to the car rental place which was only 5 minutes away.
One after the other, staff rocked up to work and ignored us and another couple standing in front of the office. Just walked past, no "good morning", nothing. At 8am a guy comes out and starts checking in returned cars - again, no "you may go in now" or any kind of acknowledgement. When I went in the woman at the counter was nice, but again - is it so hard to tell customers you're open?
We picked up our car for the first part of the trip (need to change cars when we catch the ferry to the north island), a Nissan Tiida. 98,000 on the clock, no cruise and no audio connection or even CD player. I guess that's why they are cheaper.
We then made our way to a shopping center where I had located a Telecom shop (similar to Telstra in AU) so we could get our phones sorted and online. That shop didn't open until 10am though so we spent some time getting drinks and sitting around the shops. Major mind blow - the bank (Westpac) opens on sunday. Full service. Do you hear that Australia? A country with only slightly more than 10% of the Australian population can afford to have banks open sundays!
When the Telecom shop finally opened, the girl there was very helpful and sorted me out with a special 3gb data deal and Simone got a basic txt, call and 500mb data prepaid. The sim cards were free.
No fucking around with settings like in the US, just put the card in, activate the account and it all just works. Nice!
Upon leaving the shops it rained, but after driving a few km it cleared up and the weather was back to a gorgeous sunny 23C. The drive to Lake Tekapo took us about 4 hours with a stop and plenty of slow vans. But we arrived safely and that's the main thing. We checked into our accommodation at the Lake Tekapo Motels and Holiday Park, where we had a twin suite (hut). Exploring the area and visiting the Border Collie statue was next.
Towards the evening we decided on a place to eat, both of us now really tired since basically had been awake for around 30 hours. So we had dinner at 5pm at Mackenzie's Bar & Grill. My original plan was to have Fush and Chups and take it back to our hut and eat it with the view in front of us, but the local shop was closed and the one that was open was like a jack of all trades place - so we decided to give that a miss.
After dinner we went home and Simone is happily snoring in bed while I try and keep my eyes open writing this. It's almost done!
I had the lamb shank with veggies and mash
Simone had the short rib with mash
We shared a serve of sweet potato fries, they were nice! They have a different name here which I cannot remember.
Friendly ducks walking around the huts.
The water is crystal clear! But you know what that means....
It is frikking freezing!!!!!! My feet almost fell off. It was definitely less than 10C and some people were swimming in there without a wetsuit. Crazy!
Nice panorama shot of the lake from the beach.
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