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Tuesday morning, 3 AM, Christchurch airport. Everything went smoothly tho I had to pull a ½ kg from both of the bikes boxes to meet the weight requirement. No one pulled out a tape measure, and we got the bikes and our 2nd bags checked, got our boarding passes, finished off all the food we weren’t allowed to bring on the plane.
Security was a breeze and soon we were at the gate and on our way to Australia. On landing, we had to go through customs and claim our sports equipment and that we had been through areas with livestock. Once we got to the inspection station, the guy who seemed to be having a bad day said rather roughly, “Are the bikes clean?” “Yes.” “Is the tent clean?” “Yes.” “Go on, you can go.” No inspection like we went through in NZ.
We reassembled the bikes in the 90+ heat at the airport, then followed Google maps on a long and winding way out of the terminal and all the auxiliary businesses surrounding it. Our goal was to get to the Moonee Ponds Trail for a short ride before heading to our hotel. “A short ride” turned into almost 20 miles and it was a really hot day. We eventually worked our way back towards the hotel, bought a new bottle of sunscreen at the chemist’s, and found a nice little coffee shop that served beer — in frosted glasses no less. Perfect refresher for a hot day.
At the hotel, which was a “remote check-in” place with no staff, we opened the door to our room only to find it hadn’t been cleaned. A message through booking.com to our host and within a few minutes, she “upgraded” us to a similar building two doors down. The upgrade wasn’t much of one — we lost a desk but gained a single bed. The room was clean, however, and we showered and started to think about dinner. It was some religious holiday, and a lot of the Asian restaurants Google led us to as open had signs that said, “Sorry, not open today.” (Walking in the rain to find that out! Errr.) We ended up at Shish Shawarma & Grill for a middle eastern meal that was fabulous.
Back at the hotel we settled in after the long day for a good night’s sleep.
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