From Oamaru To Christchurch

 

Day seven was the last full day of our road trip.  With the crowds gone, we spent some time in the morning looking around the Victorian Precinct – the shops were shut, so no buying anything! – and checking out some more of the lovely old stone buildings.

This building today houses the Waitaki District Council offices.

We also drove down to Friendly Bay and looked around the steampunk playground and wandered a little way out on the historic Holmes Wharf.

The waves made a lovely beachy sound as they washed in on the beach here.

Not far from Oamaru is the Riverstone Castle.  This private palace offers tours on certain days, but unfortunately not on the day we visited.

However, we were able to wander around the productive kitchen garden associated with it.  There was a chef wandering around at the same time, picking fresh produce to use in the café that day.

I would have liked to have stopped at Timaru and looked at their gardens, but the traffic was horrendous and it was just too difficult to exit and then return to the main road.

As we were leaving the town however, we spied this sculpture of Phar Lap. 

Widely regarded as the best thoroughbred racehorse this country has ever known, he died a tragic death in 1932 after being poisoned with arsenic.  A movie was made in 1983 about him.

We halted in Ashburton to eat our picnic lunch, and parked opposite the Town Clock.  What a thrill to hear it chime midday!

The main street here is very pretty, with large shady trees planted along the side of the road.

My companion wished to stop at the Book Barn at Chertsey, which we did.  It was an old corrugated iron shed housing a lot of old books on shelves and heaps of books in banana boxes piled up to the roof (which leaked).  A great place to hunt for a bargain if you are that way inclined.

Just down the road is Rakaia and one of my favourite bridges.  Crossing the Rakaia River, this bridge is 1.8km long which makes it New Zealand’s longest road bridge.  I love the way perspective operates on this bridge, but it is rare to not meet traffic on it.

At Christchurch, our final destination for our Trip, we did a little shopping before checking into our last motel.

A lot of the old streets in this city are lined with trees.  There is still the odd building to be seen that was damaged in the 2011 earthquake, but Christchurch is rapidly returning to its pre-earthquake gardenesque beauty.

That evening we joined up with friends and all went out to dinner together.  It was a fitting way to end our last day.

Margaret 😊