Relaxing in Hanmer Springs (aka Lothlorien)

(Hi, I'm Josele and I'll write this post and the following posts. We have not had too much time to update the blog these last days, so I'll write two entries, one for our trip and stay in Hanmer Springs, and a second one for our bike trip to Kaikoura... The very good news is that the computers in the YHA of Kaikoura read my Canon SD memory, so I'll be able to post photos in these two entries and add some photos for past entries.)


After a great train trip from Arthur Pass, we arrived in Christchurch where we spent only enough time for us to miss the mountains and to walk a bit around the town. Christchurch has very nice gardens, but apart from that we did not see anything really worth the trouble (apart from a short visit to a Starbucks cafe to take some photos with which to try to annoy Daniel the Starbucks-freak). We felt very happy with our change of plans (taking the train so that we could spend only half a day in Christchurch and be able to reach Hanmer Springs with the bike).

So the following day we woke up very early (a bit before 6am) to get another train to Waipara, a small village north of Christchurch, very known by wine connaiseurs as the site of the Pegasus Bay winery... From the train we could see huge plains filled with vineyards, the biggest we have ever seen, all beautifully arranged in rows, with their drip watering system and rose bush in front of each row...

We arrived at Waipara at 8am, and started our 77km. uphill stage to Hanmer Springs (during the day we would climb a bit more than 300 meters)... The trip was tough, but we had some help from the wind and from the nice cafes we stopped along the road, our favourite one in a village called Culverden, the Red Post Cafe:

We also had great views along the trip. This country is amazing, and you never get tired of the wonderful views. The landscape has changed from the West Coast, as it is now drier and more similar to the mountain landscapes you can see in Spain and France, though with no houses...

 Hanmer Springs is a loooong looong village, and it took us the last of our energy reserves to get from the village entrance to our hostel, but we were happy we had one full day to relax after so much biking in the past two weeks... First of all, we had a big Flintstones steak in a local restaurant:

We spent most of our relaxing day in the Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools. We bought the "luxurious package" and received also a well deserved 60-minute massage, exactly what our exhausted body needed after 10 bike stages!... Of course I was more worried about not falling sleep and drowning in the pools than taking pictures, but this day Internet is a great place to find some cool photos of any place you visit. This is a good one I found in http://www.travel-location-blog.com/hanmer-springs-canterbury-nz-120-pictures.htm

And that is all for the moment. I'll make a second entry later during the day about our record breaking Hanmer Springs- Kaikoura bike stage... Now we are off to a winery in Kaikoura where we'll have a tasting and a lunch.