As we left Lake Tekapo this morning we stopped to see the quaint little church, the Church of the Good Shepherd. It was built of locally gathered stone and oak, erected as a tribute to the early pioneers of the region. Nearby was the statue of a dog to remember the working dogs required in early settlement days.
Stopped at Geraldine for morning tea. We had an hour and a half here which was a much longer stop than we had previously been given. It was a pretty enough little place but not a thriving metropolis. I loved all the painted posters on the supermarket wall. Photos didn’t come out all that well though because of the sun but you should get to read many of them.
Once back on the coach, our long morning tea stop made sense, as Di announced that she and Tui had decided to now drive straight through to Christchurch, meaning that we would arrive there about 1.15pm instead of the planned 3pm. This meant that we would would not be stopping anywhere for lunch which would normally have meant an hour or so break. This doesn’t go down well with me, as I’m booked into an airport hotel for overnight as I have a 6.05am flight out in the morning. I doubted our rooms would be ready when we arrived 2 hours early and it also meant 2 hours more in an airport hotel that wouldn’t be near anything of interest.
We did actually stop at a little place purely for a toilet break so I took the opportunity to ask Di about what are we meant to do if our rooms aren’t ready now we will be arriving so much earlier. She said the hotel had a nice reception area but I told her that wasn’t any comfort, plus we did not get a lunch break so would be trapped at a hotel, without any choice. She told me that there was a Countdown supermarket nearby! This store has the same brand logo as Woolies so I figure it is a sister company, as there are no Woolworths supermarkets in NZ. Clearly Di got the message I wasn’t impressed so said she would call the hotel to confirm we needed rooms ready for an earlier check in.
Back on the coach and off we go. Eventually Di wandered down to the back of the bus where I was to say that the hotel would try to have the rooms ready. Not good enough especially when I found out that she was getting dropped off at the airport as soon as we got to Christchurch as she was catching a plane to Auckland that afternoon. She wasn’t even staying on the coach to farewell us all as we got dropped off at different venues depending on our departure day and time… Overall very disappointed with both our tour guide and driver as previously Travelmarvel have provided top staff in both roles. I can’t blame everything on covid, but perhaps the company lost some of their better people as both Di and Tui were fairly new to the company and Di was definitely a brand new tour director as this was her first season.
Anyway, it was still pretty rural scenery for the rest of the drive.
After an impromptu and chaotic photo of all the group when we arrived at the airport to drop off those departing this afternoon, D, G , Pat and I were dropped off at the Sudomo airport hotel. Once checked in to my room that was ready 🤓 I got online and checked in for tomorrow’s flights. Met the others for a wander towards the supermarket where there were a number of other food outlets. We had a Subway and soft drink for a late lunch and agreed to catch up about 6.30 to head over to the Chinese restaurant for our dinner. We will all need to be up about 3 am so there won’t be a late night, probably not much sleep either.
No comments:
Post a Comment