September 26 Sabbath I showered, ate two bananas, a bagel, and some apricot yoghurt for breakfast, and headed out for church. The first option was the building I had checked out before (with no signage). Well it was a good thing I left early enough, because the building was still locked and no one was around at 9:20, so I abandoned that option and headed for a church on the north side of town. It was closer to where I was (I had a third address but it was further still). This morning the sun was out and there were some clouds but not many, so it was nice to be outside and it made the walk much more endurable. I hurried and made it while they were still in a song service for sabbath school. The St. Albans SDA Church is a small building with a small flock. (later someone said that was the smallest church in the area) There were about 15 people when I arrived and it maybe doubled when the last person came. The congregation is older, but they were very friendly and welcoming and the sermon by one of the members was spot on. Their main pastor has three churches, so they only get him once or twice a month. After church I was invited to the home of Jan Odonnell for lunch. She and her friend Olive are both widows whose husbands died about a year ago a week apart (about the time my dad died actually). We had a nice lunch of vegetable soup and home made bread (and some cookies for desert). Later they dropped me off a short distance from my hostel on their way to another friends birthday party. The weather was still very nice so the walk back was lovely. There are only two of us in the room now so we have lots of space to ourselves. I read for a while in the evening

September 27 Sunday Another day in CHCH. My notes are bad for this day and I did not go anywhere, so I'll leave it at that.

September 28 Monday By chance I found a notice from a German guy looking for a travel mate and we met and decided to give it a go. We will leave tomorrow after I pick up my campervan. I picked up some groceries and did a load of laundry. I also finished two books and picked up a new one. The ones I finished were called In The Woods and The Anatomist, a detective story and a historical expansion of the Italian who “discovered” much of what was known about the circulatory system and the clitoris in the 1600's. The one I picked up I am excited about: Born on a Blue Day. It is the autobiography of a highly functioning autistic savant with Aspergers and synesthesia.

September 29 Tuesday Vacated Around The World and walked with all my stuff to the Spaceship office. I got there at about 8:45 and the sign said Back at 9:15, so I waited. But I got to thinking and when no one arrived by 9:25, I concluded that maybe I needed to be at the other location in town, the actual Spaceship depot to pick up my vehicle. So I made the walk over to the second address and sure enough I had a vehicle waiting. They showed me what came with the van and how things worked with it and by 10 am I was over at Foley Towers to pick up Christopher. We basically just threw our bags in the back and planned to organize everything better when we stopped for the night. So leaving CHCH we headed for the Banks Peninsula and the town of Akaroa. Almost as soon as we got outside of town the weather cleared up and we had sunshine. We both thought that Christchurch had been pulling the wool over our eyes and it was probably the only cloudy/rainy place in all of New Zealand. We were partially right. The Banks Peninsula has several scenic drives through it and we took a different route back than the one we drove out on. The town at the end of the pen, Akaroa was incredibly small and is mainly a starting point for bay cruises (where small dolphins are frequently seen). There are many places to take walks in the hills (except that Sept and Oct are lambing season and about 90% of the walks were closed due to this. We did take a nice walk to the top of the ridge where we could see bays on both sides of the peninsula and some expansive views. I guess nice is how I would describe it in hindsight because the views more than made up for the almost nonexistent trail we followed up a stream bed to get to the top. After leaving Banks Peninsula we got on the Inland Scenic Route, which was indeed scenic. The landscape is lush green, with sheep nearly everywhere. As we got a little further inland we could see the snow capped peaks rising in the near distance. Our first real stop was at Rakaia Gorge, where the color of the water fascinated us. We knew of a place to camp, but diverted to the town of Methven to get a few groceries and see if anything was happening. The town was essentially dead, but we got a local map with some trails marked on it and headed for our campground near a place called Taylor's Stream. We watched “Supersize Me” after eating and then went to bed.

September 30 Wednesday After getting up, having breakfast, and breaking our camp at Taylor's Stream, we backtracked to the Gorge and did the Gorge Walk. It took us a couple hours, but was well worth it. The water has such an amazing color from the snow melt and the rock dust in it. We continued up to Lake Tekapo, with stops at the Church of the Good Shepard on the shore and a nice walk up to Mt John's Observatory for great views back to the town and all around. Then we continued past Twizel, with a stop to exchange dvd's at the Helicopter Line, to a campground near another river. I'll have to look the name up on a map. There was a German couple already there and we talked for a while before having dinner, watching a movie and going to bed.