Day 3 Christchurch, New Zealand

Wakeup was at 7am this morning. We had brekky at Element, the restaurant connected to the hotel. Aunt Christine and I had the French toast, and this was no ordinary French toast. Well for $15, it better be special. Most of the food we've gotten here is dressed up and presented in a very fancy show. Three narrow strips of bread stacked on top of one another, with two half pieces of banana that have been grilled, with two folded pieces of Canadian bacon. It was delicious. Today's adventure was with Hassel Free Tour where we would be picked up right outside our hotel and be engaged for the entire day. Our guide, John, an elderly gentleman, was waiting for us in this off-road extreme vehicle contraption. We picked up four Mexican exchange students who are studying in Sydney, and a girl from Connecticut studying Communications and Physiology, studying abroad in Auckland. In the all terrain vehicle there were two rows of four seats sitting above the driver and passenger seats, with windows in the front so we could see over the front cap.

Our first stop was a sheep farm where we drove through the fields, through rivers, and up a mountain. The scenery was breath taking, with mountains and hills everywhere. It wasn't as green as I expected, but because it's winter I guess things aren't "in bloom." Still cool nonetheless. The only thing that was cumbersome was while we were driving it was like having the Spanish channel playing behind us, and I kind of wanted to mute it. The girls could speak English pretty well, but they just chatted away nonstop in Spanish, making it hard to hear John explain things to us. After the farm we went to the Waimak River were we got to take a jet boat ride along the canyon river. Wearing windbreakers and life jackets we sped at super fast speeds across the water. We forgot to ask Garth, our driver, how fast we were really going, but once again there's a video I took on youtube. Apparently the boat sucks in water and shoots it back out for propulsion, and it only needs to be in two feet of water to drive. The jet boat design and idea was designed by a sheep farmer from the south island of New Zealand in the 60s and the first model was tested in the Colorado River. Garth would drive us inches away from the rock cliffs and sides of the embankment, and then he would swirl his finger indicating that we were about to do a 360. The wind really tired us out after the trip. It was also strange going up the rapids in the water.Garth showed us where they filmed the fight scene between Peter and the White Witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I've never seen the movie, so I wasn't as geeked. After the jet boat ride we went to a café for lunch where we had Holmai (I don't have it spelled correctly, but its white fish, it's probably been the best fish I've had thus far). For desert we had a palstai (another wrong spelling) - it was like a light marshmallow foam wrapped in a thin cracker with whipped cream, berries, and chocolatewith a white chocolate heart candy on top. John then drove us through Arthur's Pass. We didn't know that the tour was going to take us on the same journey that we had driven to Greymouth the previous day, but it was still nice. We stopped at the Arthur's Pass town where we got on the Scenic Tours train. The train was old fashion, and it was actually very difficult trying to walk between train cars and getting to the open car where you could view the outside. The train took us back to Christchurch where we got to see more landscapes, sheep farms, beef farms, river/canyon overlooks, over bridges, and through tunnels. We were pretty whipped out, so some of the train ride was spent napping. At the train station in Christchurch John picked us up and took us home. For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant - Coyote, located on the strip. The strip is a part of town where there are a variety of pubs and restaurants that have tables outside on the sidewalks, all very fancy. It was a good, long, tiring day.