Day 20 Christchurch

We leave Kaikoura today and make our way to Christchurch but we decided we must take one more look at the New Zealand fur seal colony at Kean Point and what an experience it was.  We had read earlier that sometimes the seals come onto the road or the car park and when we arrived there was this one sitting on the car park wall taking no notice of the vehicles and people that were close to him.  We could almost have reached out and touched him but there are warning notices that they can bite you quite viciously!

One of the advantages of the satnav is that we no longer need a navigator and Christine can then take pictures of interest out of the car window.  We decided with trepidation to take the scenic route to Christchurch and again experienced some beautiful countryside.  As you can see the weather was fair and warm ~22.

 We had a break for a coffee then carried on and encountered a rare train at a level crossing.  We soon arrived at our destination by about 1:30.  All the pictures for today were taken by Christine.

                                       

We then realised we had to return the hire car today when it would not be very convenient as our accommodation was way out of the city.  We rang Hertz to see if we could keep it another day but no success and so we had the adventure of returning the car to Christchurch airport (Christchurch centre is still very much recovering from the 2011 earthquake) and making our way back by public transport.  We went from the airport on a shuttle bus to the centre, had a brief look at some of the destruction, then had a meal and found the right bus to get us back to near where we are staying.  It all worked out OK in the end.