Later that afternoon Fidel took us to Kaikoura, 2 hours north of Christchurch on the East Coast. We arrived just before dark and located our booked hostel by fluke. The place is ancient and hasn’t been renovated or anything since the 60s or 70s I’d say – I loved it. All the old wall decorations, carpets, even the kitchen appliances and crockery were ancient and mismatched, just the way I like it.
We checked out the beach scenery for a few minutes, and I continued taking loads of landscape shots as usual.
Doesn’t Fidel look great in this pic?
We headed to the Kaikoura Peninsula Walk to the east of town, and took our time walking along the cliffs and through farmer fields full of sheep dung. It was beautiful weather for a walk and there were lots of sheep and cute little lambs around for photos opportunities.
At 230pm, after eating some delicious burgers at a nice restaurant, again on a sun patio, we began the long drive back to Dunedin. Fidel managed to hold up pretty well, though he’s become a wee bit squeeky in old age. At least he isn’t afraid of the dark, as he took us through a few short tunnels bored through the bedrock coast.
We stopped after a couple hours, in Christchurch, to have a breather and grab smoothies – I got a Mega Chocolate Super Sundae Smoothie which was delicious, filling, and relatively inexpensive. On our way out of Christchurch to hit the highway south, I noticed something strange ahead of us in the sky. A funny cloud was coming out of the bigger cloud, and a small glowing thing was shooting downward from said funny cloud. Because we were moving, I couldn’t get it in my camera for some time, but did capture it right before it passed behind a lower cloud. It continued it’s trajectory as far as it could be seen, until it was too low to see. However, it definitely was something glowing flying downward at a steady angle from the funny looking cloud, and not at a plane’s angle of descent at all. I wonder what it was? Maybe I’ll ask the met service here if any funny stuff fell out of the sky recently.
By 11pm we were home in Dunedin safe and sound and I immediately went to bed.
*** Stay tuned for next post: Tribute to Fidel ***
