Aotearoa Part VI

After our amazing four days in the Fiordland National Park we headed back to Queenstown to stay at a well-appointed campsite and shower away the festering mobile stink we as a family had become. 

There is peculiar smell one develops after four days that is well ... peculiar. Not the rancid toe curl of body odour but just something very rotten indeed.

Unfortunately for the population of Queenstown, prior to our settling in at camp and taking that very necessary shower we took the kids to the bird park as my daughter really wanted to see a kiwi up close. 

It's a lovely little place set up by a local man and his family and most of the birds are rescue birds. They do have a successful kiwi breeding program and release them back into the wild in areas with predator control systems in place. They are unusual birds. A lot bigger, than I imagined and their feathers don't look like feathers but more like hair and they scamper about in a funny way so basically look like a toupee grew legs and a beak and walked off. They were lovely to see up close as were all the native birds who are all under threat due to rats, weasels and possums being introduced to New Zealand many moons ago. Luckily these were the animals who were the fascinating road kill we enjoyed on our drives and not the rare and unusual native birds of the island.
 
Anyway after collectively honking out the kiwi house we had our showers and I started packing. It was our last night with our campervan and we had an early start as hubby had booked himself in for a sky dive so we all had to be up and out of the campsite at dawn.
 
The kids and I puttered around town while he did his sky dive and as it got closer to 12 pm and I had not heard from him my daughter was clearly getting worried. She had already asked me if we would cremate him (she needed an explanation as to why Hiccup set Stoic on fire. Sorry if I ruined that for anyone who hasn't seen the sequel) and I explained well Daddy did not make his wishes clear in his will so frankly we can do what we like with him. 

By 12.15 I was also getting a tad worried and walked past the sky dive centre office as I saw the vans were back however no punters. The staff were all smiling so clearly all was well. He turned up 30 minutes later alive so I didn't have to worry about cremations or how I would get the campervan out of those busy narrow roads in Queenstown. Phew.
 
We left Queenstown that evening for Christchurch. A short spectacular flight back over the southern Alps. If you like great views without having to jump out of the plane do that flight. It's stunning.
 
I actually felt really sad leaving behind our campervan. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. We had a great time with it. Being self-sufficient on the open road was wonderful and I began to dread our last few nights in New Zealand staying in crummy motels. Let's face it no matter now nice the decor and the staff motels just smack of crummy.
 
Anyway as an antidote to the coming car and motel hell I had booked us into a hostel in Christchurch for our one night prior to heading up the north east coastal road to Kaikoura for we hope some great whale watching.
 
The hostel was a former prison and was operative as one as late as 1999. The year I got married, so how apt. It was in a fairly industrial area so not exactly picturesque but then most planners wouldn't build a prison down a nice cul de sac off the cobbled Victorian high street.
 
The hostel itself was called The Jailhouse and it really was fantastic. You stay in the prison rooms, bars on the windows et al and have your food in the communal long hall area outside the many heavy doors that slam shut for the night. The kids loved it. I picked up a pizza from Domino's just down the road where I sat with what seemed like some of the former inmates of the prison when it operated as such and we had a fab dinner at the hostel before using the industrial strength metal toilets and heading to our bunks for lights out.
 
Man criminals have it so flipping easy. Although in fairness they didn't have wifi in the rooms couldn't pop to Domino's and had to go to the toilet where they slept so actually not really that much fun but also not too different from Campervanning! 

Next Week:  Bonus Material