Day 74 - Big Bird vs. Breezer

We slept in today, probably still tired from the busyness of yesterday, before setting off on the trip down to Christchurch.

Our first stop was at Gore Bay where we hopped out to have a look at what there was to see – lots of surfers evidently as we happened to have stumbled across some sort of surfing competition. Corrie didn’t lose focus though and managed to capture a few shots of what Danny can only assume are landscapes.

We continued down the coast until we saw a sign for Motunau Beach and decided to go and check that out also. Whilst driving along this road we found ourselves spotting several of the harrier birds of prey just perched on posts at the side of the road. We came across one which decided to fly straight out in front of the 90kph moving breezer van, though Danny had just enough time to slow the van down to about 60kph on the long deserted road before the bird thwacked into the front of it below the windscreen. As far as we could tell it was a goner, that was until we saw it desperately powering itself backwards and into flight away from the van; you could almost see the shock in the poor bird’s eyes as it made its way off to try and work out what the hell just happened to it. It did make it quite effortlessly to a tree branch so appeared to be quite ok; the same couldn’t really be said for Corrie who, although not the driver, seemed more troubled by the whole event than Danny and the bird put together! We made it to the beach and took a few snaps before heading back to the main road, slowing a little every time we spotted another of these suicide harriers by the roadside.

We had our lunch in the glory of the midday sun at Kaiapoi before making the final leg of today’s journey down to the All Seasons holiday park in Bromley, Christchurch. Here we settled in and made tea whilst Corrie contacted her cousin, Elly, who lives nearby in Cashmere. We found out that we could nip over for a little while before she went to work a night shift and before her boyfriend, Rich, went to bed!

We have to say we were very impressed with their house, even more so with their view overlooking the city. Here we stayed and chatted for a few hours before making our way back to the site for bed. It was good to see them even if it was only for a short time, though we’ll definitely take up their offer of a place to stop if we pass through this way on our trip back up north.