Day twenty

Day twenty (eeek – it’s gone so quickly!)

This morning we headed off early to Hanmer Springs which is a town about two hours drive from Christchurch. As you may guess from the name it’s the sight of a thermal spring. The drive up here was amazing – Top Gear should come here. Long windy roads take you through hills and mountains and alongside freshwater streams. The more we see of New Zealand the more beautiful it appears; and the air is just so clean. It’s just a shame we’ve got a crappy automatic which has absolutely no soul – the steering is too light, the engine gear changes are slow and really clunky (like driving with a learner) and the accelerator is either on or off. Even the Fiesta would be a thousand times more fun to drive around these roads. Ah well, it does the job.

Anyway, when we got here we decided that it was far too beautiful to only spend a few hours here so we checked ourselves into a hotel so we can stay tomorrow too. We headed straight to the hot springs. It’s about ten degrees here so getting into swimming stuff was not pleasant, I can tell you. The pools were lovely though and made it all worth it. There were three hot freshwater pools, eight hot rock pools, three sulphur pools, a water slide pool for the kids and a normal pool. Apart from the normal pool the temperatures ranged from 33 degrees to 37 degrees in the rock pools; 36 – 38 in the freshwater pools and the sulphur pools were 41 degrees. Oooooh. It was so nice and relaxing and the setting couldn’t be more picturesque. Trees and rocks everywhere and the backdrop was a massive, snow-covered mountain. The only problem was getting out – it was bloody freezing to say the least. Oh, and the sulphur pools stank to high heaven too. Mmmm, rotten eggs. We got a return pass so we went out for a bit and then returned in the evening – it was really nice to be there in the dark as well; a bit quieter and the lights are really cool. Even colder getting out second time around though. There was a great machine in the changing rooms called the suit mate. Basically it’s a tiny spin dryer but you pop your costume in and turn it on for five seconds and it’s dry. It’s the best invention – no more soggy swimming bags!

After washing the egg smell off we headed to the street (there is only one here) for dinner. We didn’t realise that everything would be closed at half eight after having been in Sydney where nothing ever closes. It actually worked in our favour though as we ended up in the only place that was still open and it was so yummy. It was an Indian restaurant called Malabar and it’s run by a couple who came from Mumbai (population 18 million) about ten years ago to Hanmer (population 800). The food was so good and we weren’t surprised to learn that the restaurant has won awards. Now we’re watching the cricket – looks like you’re having good weather over there!