The Pass of Arthur

To get back to Christchurch, we drove through Arthur's Pass which was breathtaking and gorgeous. We did a couple short hikes along the way, but it was pretty chilly and cloudy for much of the day.

And then we found the giant donut. Not sure what to say about this except that it was amazing and I don't know if I'll ever have an experience like this again in my lifetime. It had to be documented.

At first we were happy we found the donut...

And then we just got hangry, well maybe just I did, Don looks pretty okay. WE WANT TO EAT THE GIANT (PLASTIC) DONUT!

Upon arriving in Christchurch, we realized that we didn't have any place to stay for the night. I vaguely remembered that a family we stayed with thru Airbnb back in Waitomo had said they had had a friend in Christchurch with a place for us to stay. So we contacted their friend, Cathy, and little did we know, we were going to make a wonderful new friend.

There's nothing quite like absolutely beautiful coastline.

Cathy was so wonderful and generous in welcoming us into her home. We will always consider her one of the most amazing people we ever met during our travels. She lived in this wonderful little bright and airy home in ChCh with a wood stove. After a long stretch of traveling in hostels and such, we were so excited to sleep in a real bed and just relax for a bit. We spent our first night there cozied up by the wood stove drinking hot tea and talking to Cathy about her experiences in the earthquakes and traveling and all kinds of other things.

The next day, upon Cathy's suggestion, we drove out to Taylor's Mistake, an amazingly beautiful coastal cliff walk. Aside from our day on Waiheke Island outside of Auckland, it was the most beautiful coastal area we had seen in New Zealand.