© 2012 Elys. All rights reserved. Country road

Day 283: Collapsing Space

Blenheim – Christchurch, New Zealand

Hanna and I woke an hour earlier to pack up our backpacks and clean up our campervan. We were so getting used to the routines of disassembling the bed and reassembling the dining table that it was sad to finally have to leave the comfort of our own space.

I took a freezing cold shower to anticipate the two-day travel madness that I’d be having.

Hanna’s future travel mates, Vroni and Alex joined us for breakfast in our van. Afterwards, Hanna was kind enough to drive to a dump station to do a final clean up of the van’s water and toilet waste. She probably knew that the clumsy me would have trouble managing on my own.

I bid Hanna farewell and headed on south to Christchurch. On my way, I pulled over at a rest stop where I saw a bunch of cars were parked. Not knowing what was there, I soon discovered that there’s actually a small trek to a waterfall where hundreds of seal pups could be found during winter. It was an incredible sight seeing those wild seal pups so up close and in such abundance.

Five hours of driving later, I reached the automobile rental company and sorted out the necessary paperwork with them. Then it’s off to the airport for a sleep overnight for an early morning flight back to Sydney.

The reviews of Christchurch airport is rather mixed at Sleeping In Airports site. As anticipated, I was shooed off from the lounge area in the evening to join a huge group of overnighters in a not so friendly rest designated area. It’s by the automatic door entrance so it was cold at all time. The rules were not to take up more than one seat on the bench and not to sleep on the floor. I was planning to follow the rules until I gave up at around 11pm. I pulled out my sleeping bag, put on all the layers of clothings I had and went on to sleep on the floor. A couple other people did that as well. Surprisingly, I wasn’t at all bothered, other than by the constant chattering of three girls near me.

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