We found another place where to stay in Christchurch for our second stop over there. We had planned on going back to visit a bit more this beautiful city and try to sell our van as our time in New Zealand is winding down. During our stay at David and Yvonne's house, we managed to finally bring our van to a garage and get it checked out. We were fearing a pretty salty bill but once again, nothing major was to be done and we got out of the Toyota dealership with a tune-up worth 75$. The noise persisted but we did improve the general running of the van.
In Christchurch, we slept for the last time in our blue van, on a residential street. We were glad to wake up in warmer conditions than Queenstown or Wanaka and met up with Blossom and Danielle at night. Danielle is a french canadian from Manitoba and I enjoyed talking and learning about the big french community where she's from. I didn't know much about it and it was good to have another perspective of french spoken in Canada outside of Quebec. Blossom was also nice and introduced us to some yoga sessions. The two ladies both had a few tasks to assign to us, like repairing the edging in the front yard, water blasting the outside walls and entrance of the house, weeding and most importantly, painting the whole laundry room. We first had to remove the wallpaper and scrape the walls, then do all the painting. We did a pretty good job and could finally see clearly how helpful our work can be. We took some time to post an add to sell our van and were very surprised to get some interest a day later. We were told winter is the off season for selling vans so that's why we decided to start advertising ours in advance. We arranged a meeting with a couple, frenchman Florian and his german girlfriend Beatrice. I couldn't believe how thick his accent was although he had a good vocabulary and grammar. They made a pretty good offer right from the start and I didn't have to work too hard to get the amount I was looking for in the end. Very surprising how easy the whole thing went and Dana and I were sad to part ways with our lovely van but happy to get a worry out of the way. We even managed to sell it 600$ more than we bought it...
On our last night in Christchurch, we hooked up one more time with our german friend Felix, who had come up from Wanaka the previous night. There was an important rugby game in town against South Africa so we decided to go watch it in a giant bar called "The Holy Graal". They have the biggest screen in the southern hemisphere and the place was packed. At least three stories high, everybody was analysing every move of their national heroes. It was also nice that Danielle came with us, as we talked football and sports in general during the game. We said goodbye to Felix after the game and woke up early the next morning to catch a bus at 7:00 a.m.
Our journey in the South island was pretty much done...
In Christchurch, we slept for the last time in our blue van, on a residential street. We were glad to wake up in warmer conditions than Queenstown or Wanaka and met up with Blossom and Danielle at night. Danielle is a french canadian from Manitoba and I enjoyed talking and learning about the big french community where she's from. I didn't know much about it and it was good to have another perspective of french spoken in Canada outside of Quebec. Blossom was also nice and introduced us to some yoga sessions. The two ladies both had a few tasks to assign to us, like repairing the edging in the front yard, water blasting the outside walls and entrance of the house, weeding and most importantly, painting the whole laundry room. We first had to remove the wallpaper and scrape the walls, then do all the painting. We did a pretty good job and could finally see clearly how helpful our work can be. We took some time to post an add to sell our van and were very surprised to get some interest a day later. We were told winter is the off season for selling vans so that's why we decided to start advertising ours in advance. We arranged a meeting with a couple, frenchman Florian and his german girlfriend Beatrice. I couldn't believe how thick his accent was although he had a good vocabulary and grammar. They made a pretty good offer right from the start and I didn't have to work too hard to get the amount I was looking for in the end. Very surprising how easy the whole thing went and Dana and I were sad to part ways with our lovely van but happy to get a worry out of the way. We even managed to sell it 600$ more than we bought it...
On our last night in Christchurch, we hooked up one more time with our german friend Felix, who had come up from Wanaka the previous night. There was an important rugby game in town against South Africa so we decided to go watch it in a giant bar called "The Holy Graal". They have the biggest screen in the southern hemisphere and the place was packed. At least three stories high, everybody was analysing every move of their national heroes. It was also nice that Danielle came with us, as we talked football and sports in general during the game. We said goodbye to Felix after the game and woke up early the next morning to catch a bus at 7:00 a.m.
Our journey in the South island was pretty much done...
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