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One of the things you really don't want to get when you're about to set off on holidays, is an email that starts off, "<airline name> regrets to advise...". Well, two days before we were due to depart, we got one of those. I think I was safe in assuming that this wasn't from the airline telling us we'd been upgraded to first class. We had planned on leaving on a Saturday, and then have 3 days to organise ourselves for our clockwise circumnavigation of New Zealand's South Island (plus a little short trip to a totally unconnected airshow that hasn't been on for 6 years due to a certain global health event). The flight we were booked on operates (or 'should' operate) Auckland-Brisbane-Auckland daily. However, for 'technical' reasons, they had seen fit to cancel both the Saturday and Sunday flights. This left us with two options - delay to the Monday, leaving us out of pocket for 2 days worth of motel and hire car rentals already paid for, or go a day early, and add another day's car hire and motel room.
We went for Plan B, so we had a mere 24 hours to get our act together. Not too hard as we'd had spent weeks planning what to take, so off we went. The only minor niggle was that our window/aisle seats (booked months ago) were no longer available.
Our Air New Zealand B777 awaiting our presence before departing for Auckland.
Volcanic Mt Taranaki / Egmont, en-route from Auckland to Christchurch. ~2500m
As the motel we were originally planning to stay in had no vacancies for the additional night, we decided to cash in a free night we had with a hotel chain. They had a hotel right at the airport, so we didn't have far to walk to trundle our baggage trolley after we got off the aircraft in Christchurch. The two shots below are from our hotel room window. A 'reggie-spotters' delight! [1]
As we had a day up our sleeves, we decided to take a trip out to Akaroa, a lovely old (originally French) fishing village on the Banks Peninsula. It's a delightful drive and you end up descending into a long harbour (Akaroa is the Maori name that translates to Long Harbour) that opens to the sea. It's also the long dead volcanic caldera that forms the Banks Peninsula. While it's only about 80kms, it takes at least 90 minutes as the last section is full of curves. A delightful lunch was had sitting by the harbour.
Akaroa across the harbour.
A very popular place for fun on the water.
Takapūneke - site of an original Maori village overlooking the harbour.
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[1] Reggie-Spotter: One who takes more than a passing interest in taking down aircraft types and registrations. See also 'Train Spotting' and 'Anorak'.
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