Activity level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 👟🚐🪂
We pretty much decided to sleep in, though we didn’t totally have enough time to do that. By this point, the camper van was starting to smell a little (Eric takes full credit), so we opened up the windows while we got ready.
We decided on a fairly short hike which boasted stunning views, the Kea Point trail, which we raced up. On the way up, Sarah saw and called out an actual avalanche. Eric saw the tail end, but we both quickly heard the booming that it caused throughout the valley. Hopefully nobody got hurt!
The top was gorgeous, with dazzling, glinting views of the Tuckett Glacier on the side of Mt. Sefton, with Mt. Cook in the distance. We could also see the river that led up to the Mueller Glacier, and the lake it formed below. We couldn’t stay long, so we snapped a few photos and ran back down the mountain.
We dashed off in our camper van and headed straight for Christchurch since we had a 4:30 appointment to go paragliding. After talking to our guide Ryan on the phone, he assured us that it would be calm—we’d take off from the side of a hill and return to that hill after seeing some sights. We had our fingers crossed the whole drive since we knew how much wind can change in a day.
We quickly stopped for lunch at a cute cafe with a beautiful garden (though we couldn’t stay long), and filled up the van with gas (the fuel kind) before pushing through on the four hour drive.
As we got closer to the paragliding spot, it got more and more obvious that “little hill” means something different over here. As we drove up and up the mountain, with views of the city below, we realized that this wasn’t going to be a rinky-dink paragliding excursion.
We met up with Ryan who was extremely nice, and he told us that the winds were a little high, so we would have to wait it out to make sure it was safe. Luckily, the winds died down slightly and Eric was chosen to go first (Ryan’s partner couldn’t make it that day, so we’d go back to back instead of at the same time).
After a quick up, Eric made his way over the ridge, out to sea with views of the Scarborough Cliffs in Christchurch. Words can’t even describe how surreal it was to be up 200 meters (2.18 football fields), looking down and seeing only legs and air and houses. After doing some tricks and floating around a little more, Eric came back down to Earth to a clapping Sarah.
Then, it was Sarah’s turn. She also went out to the cliffs, but apparently there were some weird currents and they went falling (safely) below the cliff line. Ryan told Sarah that they might have to make a landing on the beach since there were a severe lack of normal updrafts. Luckily, they caught an “elevator” just in time and were able to make it back to the top of Taylor’s Mistake, soaring above the hills to see gorgeous views of the city and bleating sheep below.
After all of that, we decided to book a nice hotel for our last night in New Zealand, so Sarah chose a place in Christchurch called Sudima, and we went to check in. We told the staff it was our honeymoon, and they congratulated us before checking us in. We ordered some room service from the restaurant below because we were exhausted. A little later, they showed up with some dessert and wine to go with dinner, which was a really great treat and made it all feel special.
We got right to business: laundry. Unfortunately, there was a long line, and the washer didn’t spin cycle properly—so all of our clothes were dripping wet out of the washer. Eric wrung them out and threw them in the dryer, but, as of this writing, it’s unclear whether they’ll actually dry before we have to wake up for our 6:00 AM flight to Australia. Here’s hoping!
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