Leaving New Zealand

Tomorrow morning we leave New Zealand at the obnoxiously early hour of 7 am. We have to be at the airport by 5. We leave the hostel at 4 am. I am not looking forward to spending the day with Heather after she has been woken up at that time. I think it is cruel and unusual to put an international flight on at that time. Virgin Blue, "discount" airline. That should have been the clue....

We have been in Christchurch for 2 days. Yesterday it was pouring most of the day so we all sat around and read books in the hostel. I think after whirling around New Zealand like the proverbial dervishes, we were all ready for a lazy day. Heather was bugging everyone to play cards with her, so I struck on the brilliant plan of teaching her solitaire. She played quite a bit yesterday and is at it again today. She is her grandma Jean's grandaughter for sure.

Today we went to Singapore airlines and moved our flight out of Australia back 2 weeks. We felt rushed in New Zealand and didn't want the same to happen in Australia. We will now have a little over 5 weeks there instead of 3. It also gives us less time in China. We were going to be in China for over 2 months, which is probably more than Heather (and the rest of us) could take. She may be back to a plain rice diet there. Although we can probably find some stuff that is not too spicy as well, I hope.

We posted a package of brochures and maps, etc. to Richard and Martina to hold on to for us. We picked them because Alan had bought a t-shirt for Richard in Cambodia (Richard-- you can just take out the t-shirt and hold onto the rest if you don't mind). I also mailed a present to Ruth's friend Laura who was so nice to us in Nelson...

We went from there to the Canterbury museum. It was a nice museum. Not huge, but some interesting bits. The kids went into an interactive part and were gone for well over an hour (you had to pay extra so the cheapskate adults just waited for them). There was an exhibit which had been a New Zealand/US base that had been dismantled after being used for international explorations in Antartica. There was also one of those pretend old streets from the turn of the century. They had both a penny farthing bicycle and a fiberglass horse you were allowed to ride. We discovered that even 12 year old boys can get a kick out of getting on a fiberglass horse if they are 10,000 miles from anyone they know...

If we survive the wake up call at 4 am, the next post will be from the (other) land down under.