Christchurch

We have decided we are definitely more inclined to rural life  than city living. We did enjoy our time in Christchurch catching up with friends and family but the driving in crowded streets (and the many under construction in this particular city) does little for stress levels. Even leaving the city late afternoon on Wednesday was difficult. We are very aware that we are a long vehicle (9 metres plus the car) and we don’t travel at more than 80kmph. No sooner had we pulled over to let the traffic build up past, another stream at taken its place. In the end we stopped at West Melton, had tea and waited till later in the evening more moving on. 

Parked beside Lake Ellersmere, at Lakeside Domain.

Initially we spent a day out in the Ellersmere area, first at the Lakeside Domain on the southern end of the lagoon before moving to Coes Ford for the night.

 It is hard to believe that this lagoon is in classified as NZ's most polluted lakes  as our views of it showed a very diverse variety of wild life. We found a lovely walk to a ‘hide’ where we could sit and watch their goings on.Once again this was a spot we would never have found unless we were out biking and spotted the sign. It wasn’t obvious, especially if you were travelling in a vehicle.

Coes Ford was  an interesting spot and we shared it with a ‘real’ gypsy bus, ponies, dogs and all. 

Gypsy bus

The side benefits of travelling with ponies.

For the rest of our time we stayed at a NZMCA (Motor Caravan Assoc) camp not far from Templeton.  At this stage it is still very much a bare paddock (and dried off at the moment of course) although it does have water, rubbish and a communal building. Even so, it is a very popular spot and there would have been at least 60 vehicles there, and even more on census night. We stayed on till Wednesday so as to be in a recognised campsite for census night and to attend the Ellerslie Flower Show.