The Canterbury Grand Tour

So apparently I’ve been so busy vacationing, I haven’t had time to blog about it. Eheh.

Here’s that first tour. Executive summary: Huge gardens; random umbrellas; themed cocktails; left behind; stupid clouds; Obama is everywhere; beach!

First, have a shot from the Botanic Gardens, which we circled in the driving-the-bus-around-the-city part:

They’re a subset of Hagley Park, which is 460 acres. It has 80 sports fields, and the path that goes around the whole thing is six and a half km; if you can’t make it, there are two pubs and a hospital along the way.

The tour group had people from all over. There was a couple with a four-year-old from India; a family of (white) South Africans with the parents and three kids; some Brits; and a couple other Americans.

Punting!

Turns out this whole area used to be a wetland. Then the Europeans showed up and started planting trees.

Note the umbrella tucked against the seat. We never used them, and it’s not like there are raging rapids (the stream is maybe three feet deep), so I wasn’t quite sure what they were there for.

We passed a lot of bridges. Also a lot of ducks, and a field in which were planted a million daffodil bulbs. (All dormant now, of course, but apparently in the spring it’s a very popular place for weddings.)

Inside the Sign of the Takahe, a ridiculously lavish restaurant and pub. (It was supposed to be one of four or five, all with bird-themed names, but the founder sank all his money into the first one.)

It had a bunch of bird-named cocktails; I went with a Kiwi. (“Cocktail fan?” asked the bartender. “No,” I admitted. “But I figured, as long as I’m here…”)

Their liquor license didn’t allow them to sell drinks for taking off the premises, so I had to drink as much as I could while I was there. I only got through about a third of it.

Did I mention it’s 198 m up from the city? (You can see it there in the corner.)

Aaaaand this is where the bus left me behind. Left my drink in the pub and came up, about a minute too late.

The woman at the counter was incredibly helpful, tracking down the tour company online and calling them up. Fifteen minutes later, the bus was back. The driver was very good about it – contrite as well as joking. “It was the South Africans’ fault. They told me everyone was on!”

(I wish I’d known it was going to happen; I would have hung on to my drink longer.)

In the gondola ride, on the way up an even higher mountain. The “now we’re so high up that the clouds are blocking the view under us” kind of mountain:

Rode up in the same cab as the Indian couple; their son kept asking questions, and identifying the numbers on the cabs we passed. (“That one has a one and an eight on it!”)

There was, naturally, a gift shop at the top. I left my wallet at the base, so I didn’t get anything, but I couldn’t resist taking this picture:

Of course an NZ chess set would be “kiwi versus sheep”.

One of the nicer photos I got, before it clouded over entirely.

A few minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave, an announcement came over the PA: “Passengers on the Grand Tour should start making their way back down now. Especially the South Africans.”

I rode down with them, talked with the parents a bit. Among other things, they mentioned that they were excited about Obama. (“We’ll be going back to a new president too – not as exciting.” “One who should be in jail.”)

Did pick up a rather nice souvenir photo pack at the bottom. More on that later.

Winding our way down to the beach – we stopped at a lookout. (Not quite sure who’s setting that fire down below. Campers?)

You can see that a lot of the water doesn’t hit “beach” so much as “dropoff of rock.”

Giant rock on the beach. With cave! It gets cut off on the right, but the rock stops right after the edge of the picture; this isn’t the tip of an outcropping, but a random huge pile of stone sticking up out of the beach.

Actual beach!

The view from the top of that rock!

We stopped by the beach and had lunch in the town, then made our way back to the city. Got dropped off right next to the local souvenir store. (I finally got me a spoon!)

I ended up deleting a bunch of photos from the earlier stops, because they were close to the city and/or close to the ground, so I knew I could go back to them easily. So there may be more pictures of those areas later. (Especially given that, to make up for being left behind, I got an extra coupon for a free punt ride.)