Nice Family Visit Part 1

So one bright day in Feb, Si and I made our way to the airport to pick up a first UK visitors, Marie and Nick Nice! Thankfully the weather had changed to glorious sunshine and we kept our fingers crossed that the rest of the weeks ahead would be great and sunny so not to mention Si’s parents that they had actually left England.

The frantic pace of buying the house and getting it sorted in time for our visitors was worthwhile as finally we had a house we could call a Kiwi home. Far better than the depression of Burnham Army Camp.

Si managed to take a couple of days off the first week Nick and Marie were here and showed them the key sights of Christchurch whilst they fought off the jet lag. First night Nick fell asleep at 9pm, Marie was soon to follow with Si and I wondering whether it was our conversation that was sending them too sleep so early!

Trips out to Port Hills, Lyttleton Harbour, Governors Bay, Lincoln Uni (well pie shop), vineyards at Geeson and also a quick visit to the house at Burnham followed. I just wanted Marie to see where we used to live so she could understand how bad the house was. For the first week here we just generally chilled out, stayed local and had a few BBQ’s.

For the second week that Marie and Nick were here, they hired a car, we gave them a map and directions of where to go, and off they they went, via Kaikora (whale watching), Marlborough region through to the bays of Nelson and Abel Tasman park back via Lewis Path and Springs Junction café (the place we told them not to eat at). Believe they thoroughly enjoyed themselves and had lots of photo’s to take.

Once they returned back to Christchurch, we had more BBQ’s before we went off on our road trip to the West Coast of SI. The mistake we made, living here, is that we did not realize that it was peak holiday season, with all accommodation at Frans & Fox Glacier being sold out, with the hoteliers being able to charge extreme prices (tourist prices not Kiwi prices) for a night’s accommodation!

We had one night in Frans Josef resort, had extremely bad experience in a local restaurant that I won’t go into - except for anyone visiting do not go the Blue Note Café!

The next day we paid a visit to Fox Glacier - have attached photo’s. It was about a 20 minute walk to the front of the ‘live’ glacier, feeling the temperature drop and be able to look at the moving (extremely slowly ice). Nick decided that he did not want to walk that far, so Marie and Si made the trek. Very good indeed!