Hanmer Hotsprings

Ingrid and I made it to New Zealand just fine, after some initial drama at Dulles. I booked our tickets through Air New Zealand, one of the nicer airlines in the world, which stated that tickets bought together would have seats together. The leg from Dulles to Los Angeles was on United (a sister carrier of Air New Zealand), which apparently does not have the same policy of sitting with the others you bought tickets for. What a crappy airline. Fortunately, some of United’s employees (at the gate) were very nice and upgraded us to seats together and with extra legroom. A little over 24 hours later, after a wonderful flying experience in Air New Zealand economy (gluten-free meals, personal televisions with music, movies, tv shows, game shows, etc, free champagne, wine with dinner, etc.), we arrived in Christchurch, NZ. A quick trip to the Thrifty counter provided us with an upgraded (for free) rental car (automatic, which was good for Ingrid). We had an afternoon to kill between the airport and Kaikoura, our first town, so we decided to drive up to Hanmer Hotsprings for the acclaimed thermal pools. The town was cute, but very small, and seemed to be built around the hot springs, which were a little too commercial for my tastes. After paying a few dollars, you walk out to what looks like a cross between an outdoor swimming pool and a water park. The grounds were unspectacularly manicured. The pools were designer swimming pools with faux rocks; and the water was fairly sulphery, making for unpleasant smells. From Hanmer, we drove the gamut of New Zealand roads. We followed some seemingly main roads (navigating from the atlas we bought at the airport) to Kaikoura, a small town on the eastern coast. But first to the roads. They are narrow, which isn’t such a problem because the cars are also narrow. But one of the roads we chose to follow suddenly turned into a narrow gravel road for some 20-30 miles. And then at nearly every single bridge, the roads narrow into one-lane road with right of ways determined by arrows. Not a bad idea, but it took a little getting used to. In Kaikoura, we stayed at the Donnegal House, a lovely Irish hotel that overlooks a chain of snow-capped mountains. Our room opened out onto the beautiful gardens and cow pastures, which we spent a little time roaming before dinner, where we found out that my aunt Karen had arranged to pay for our accommodations as a wedding gift.