Busy Last Day in Otautahi - for now

Tuesday 2 June

Banjo has had her service last week, this was ELLAMY’s turn - so we whizzed (crawled tbh as it was rush hour) into town, handed over the Pajero and keys to the garage and collected the most hideous metallic orange courtesy car for the rest of the day. Our glamorous orange set of wheels for the day even came with its own Halloween style spider webs to complement the pumpkin colour!🎃🕸️

First stop in our new wheels was CMG where we were booked to test drive a GWC Cannon Ultra as Louis is considering this as an alternative to the Pajero (more weight capacity and more volume capacity too for all our stuff!). Seemed to go well and now we need to see how it responds with Banjo attached behind.

Second stop was the new Parakiore Recreation and Sport Centre so that Louis could have a swim. It has only recently opened and seems very well equipped and surprisingly reasonably priced at $7 for a swim. The basketball hall was huge and had heaps of seating - as well as providing facilities for locals, this place targets high performance sport and public events.

I wandered off to find the nearby Hato Hone St John Op Shop but failed to buy anything (good move, Banjo is pretty much fully loaded these days with all our winter woollies and coats!). The necklace hanger was cute, but I’d need about 20 of them!!! I was more than a little disturbed by this creepy fella outside Vino Fino next door to the op shop - it’s the placement of the wine tap… 🤭🫣

Third stop for Louis was the NZ Blood Donation centre on Tuam St where he was booked to donate plasma at noon (they were not too happy about his recent swimming activities or cup of coffee, but they are low on donors so forgave him just this once!) Meanwhile, I piloted the orange beast out to the airport to collect Abby and then drop her out to Rolleston where she was hitching a lift down to Timaru with one of Jez's work colleagues. Got back just as ELLAMY's service was finished so we happily switched back to our usual set of wheels, swung by Shear Havoc to get a tiny bit extra trimmed off my bangs, then back to Banjo for a bit of a siesta after a busy day.

Our final evening in Ōtautahi Christchurch so we cooked dinner over at Ella & Josh’s place and said our fond farewells to them and the hoodlum hounds - Jessie & Shadow. 🖤🖤 The hoodlums were very patient, sitting and lying in "Place" while Josh prepared their dinner - I joined in - Josh told me I should be sitting or lying down… I was a bad dog! 🤣. Good ole flat chook for dinner - always goes down well - then pupster snuggles before we left.

Home for a long sleep before we move on up the coast in the morning. 😴