24 March – Palm Springs
Since Melbourne we have had a lovely week in New Zealand and have now settled in to Palm Springs.
Our journey to New Zealand went smoothly and we were met by our friend Penny at Christchuch airport. She whisked us off to her house a few miles from the airport and we spent the rest of the day catching up with each other’s news. We had not seen Penny since we were in Santiago 2 years ago but it seemed like only yesterday that we were all on our South American truck holiday. Penny had taken a week’s holiday so that she could travel with us and had also organised accommodation – such a pleasure for us that we did not have to think about anything!!
We spent the first day travelling to Penny’s mum’s home in Reefton. This is a lovely little town that most tourists would simply pass through which is a shame as we thoroughly enjoyed our stay and typical New Zealand hospitality. The next day we headed up to Marahau and 3 days in a cabin at a lovely campsite close to the sea. The weather was superb and we enjoyed walking in the Abel Tasman National Park. For one walk we took an aqua taxi from the campsite up the coast and then walked back. It did seem odd getting into a boat on a trailer and being towed along the road to be launched into the sea. Great fun! We also went to Farewell Spit and had a lovely walk through some hills and sand dunes to a deserted beach with just a couple of other tourists as well as 2 seals sleeping under a large overhanging rock. The next day we travelled to Nelson where Penny took us to a museum called the World of Wearable Arts. This was the sort of place that Gerry would never have gone into. However, they had a collection of Classic Cars which kept him interested for the best part of an hour and then he went into the wearable arts displays. He was as mesmerised as the girls – if you ever visit Nelson you should visit. From Nelson we travelled along the Marlborough Sound coast road to Picton- an experience well worth doing as the scenery was brilliant to Picton. After lunch we drove on down to Kaikoura and a complete change in the scenery. The north east corner of South Island has been suffering a terrible drought and we found it quite hard to comprehend after the lush green of the West coast. The fields and hill sides were as barren and brown as we would expect in the Californian desert. Cattle and sheep were really suffering as there was simply no pasture for grazing and feed was having to be transported in.
On Easter Sunday we headed back to Christchurch where we said goodbye to Penny and boarded our aircraft for Auckland. In Auckland we had an hour and a half to wait before the long leg to Los Angeles where we arrived 6 hours before we had left New Zealand! The final leg of our journey was to go through immigration, retrieve our bags, go through customs and then hand the bags back in and board the aircraft for our short flight to Palm Springs. Having managed the admin we were then advised that our flight was delayed by an hour for technical reasons!!. Ready to collapse when we got to Palm Springs airport, we were dismayed to find that our bags had not made it and the car hire company had run out of cars. That said it only took about 30 minutes to report our bags and for a car to arrive from the downtown depot.
It seemed like going home as we entered Ocotillo Lodge and were greeted by quite a few of our friends who were having an Easter Party. We quickly settled in and then went and did some shopping by which time one of the bags had arrived at the airport and the second came in a couple of hours later. So having collected the bags we really enjoyed a glass of wine and a Pizza before retiring for the night.
Those who know us will not be surprised that within 24 hours we have settled in to our Palm Springs routine and are looking forward to seeing Jo and the boys in San Diego on Tuesday.
