Wha a day! We were docking as we woke this morning. After a leisurely breakfast up in the cafe we prepared ourselves and went ashore - today was so much better organised than yesterday. We were able to just walk off. We weren‘t able walk to town though, it is a working dock and we had to be bussed off. So we caught shuttle to the local bus stop for a local bus to take us to the base station of a gondola. But no, the buses went on strike at 10am and at 9:50 the bus rolled up, the driver opened her door and said Im sorry, I cant take you anywhere. We‘ll be back at work at 1pm.
There was an American couple from California also wanting to go to the gondola, so we shared a $30 taxi that had to go through the tunnel they have. The taxi driver told us we were the first cruise ship in 11 years. We then caught the gondola to the top of the mountain 500 metres above sea level. This mountain separates Lyttleton from the Canterbury Plains that Christchurch sits on, and the views were just amazing. A
customer up on the ship in the dock and the lady behind the counter said oh they up here and we said yes we have, were here and the two ladies behind the counter cheered. Noelene, the lady in the gift shop, told us that the docks at Lyttleton were wrecked by the earthquake 11 years ago and that the guy in charge of the port authority got a bonus of $320,000 for all of the freighters he brought in to port, so he fixed the freight dock, but the cruise ship dock wasnt fixed until 2021. Noelene is married to a man of Māori descent. She said that their children are all having to learn Māori language at school, but that it was irrelevant because it cant be used anywhere but NZ. She also told us all about her husband‘s DNA results (no, I did not start that conversation) - hes 50% Scottish, and the Māori part is also mixed with Polynesian which she says dismays him because the Māori are not fond of the Samoans and Tongans. She also said that Jacinda is not popular in NZ - shes a socialist. She was a
After exploring we decided to have lunch up there, and the best coffee weve had all week. Just before one we caught the gondola back down and saw the local bus pulling back out on to the highway. So we waited for the next one half an hour later. Whilst we were waiting a taxi dropped some people off and then stopped by us and asked us where we were going. We told him we were waiting for the bus, he told us there were none, we said there would be. He said hed take us to Lyttleton for a discounted price - how much? $30. I said thats no discount, thats what we paid this morning. He said $25? We said no, so he countered with $20? So we agreed and got in. The taxi driver was an Afghani from Kabul. he took us to the information centre in Lyttleton where we caught the shuttle back to the ship. When we left thei ship there were not drug dogs like yesterday, but we still had the hand luggage like yesterday.
Gregory Peck movie about a gunfighter, it was time to get ready for dinner. Tom had a spinach in puff pastry triangle, and I had escargot as entrees, then we both had steaks as mains, and peanut butter ice cream and mango sorbet for dessert, although Kuldeep, our waiter, insisted we share an Austrian dessert, a rich chocolate torte. A lovely married couple at the next table, Geoffrey and Patrick from Texas, were very interesting to chat to.
After dinner we went to the evening show - tonight we were marvellously entertained by Will Martin, a young guy born in New Zealand - grew up in Taupo and taught himself to play the piano. His voice is just fantastic - look him up on YouTube.
