christchurch - our new home?

hello out there! hope you all had a fantastic christmas, especially those of you who were fortunate to have snow on the ground - how perfect!

my dad arrived safely on christmas eve and we had a quiet (but lovely) christmas in the motel, complete with handmade decorations that i made bryan get up early to finish. he's a good one. it was strange to miss most of the lead-up to the christmas season, being far away from commercials and christmas songs and window displays, and i was disconcerted to find myself almost comforted by the experience of a bustling mall when we arrived in the city during the peak of holiday shopping. after discovering many exciting surprises in our christmas stockings (so thoughtfully decorated and sent over by my mom), we drove east to the old french town of akaroa on the banks peninsula a few hours east of christchurch via some steep and windy roads. nothing was open, but it was a lovely drive and kept us away from the mountains of christmas chocolate for a little while.

yesterday we made another excursion, this time to mount sunday, best known as the town of edoras in rohan for my fellow lord of the rings fans. it's definitely off the beaten path, but there were quite a few cars on the gravel road so i suppose we're not the only cheesy tourists around. it's obviously peak tourism season, as the motels and backpackers are consistently slipping the "no" sign in front of "vacancy" and the roads are crowded with campervans and hitchhikers. we'd planned to take the bus up to nelson today, but the nakedbus was full so we opted to take the scenic train ride to greymouth and the bus from greymouth to nelson, making for a 10-hour day of traveling. tomorrow we'll hop on a shuttle bus for a short 90-minute drive to nelson lakes national park, where we'll head into the wilderness for about a week and see what adventures await us there.

-rachel