Christchurch and Greymouth

April 1st was the Easter Day. Day before, March 31st, we were leaving Wellington and flying to the South Island, to Christchurch.

Before leaving, early in the morning, we boiled 6 eggs for our Easter meal. We boiled them in our own brewed dye that was reddish brown color. Unfortunately, our eggs were brown already (they don’t sell white eggs in NZ) and they remained almost of the same color. Still, we came up with this design:

We didn’t eat them in Wellington, we packed and took them to Christchurch. There a new stage of our trip began. Now we were traveling different way. My friend Valda came from Warkworth, rented a car and was going to drive us. Valda also planned the trip and we trusted her completely because we knew she was an experienced traveler.

We didn’t want to drive on the left(wrong!) side of the road. We’ve heard about tourists getting into accidents or even getting killed because they wre not used driving that way. We saw arrows marking driving directions almost before every bend of the road:

Valda came and we had a mixed Lithuanian/New Zealand Easter celebration:

Christchurch was about the only town we visited that was flat. The signs of devastating 2010-2012 earthquakes were still evident:

Christchurch cathedral destroyed in the earthquake

Construction was still going on in the town.

185 white chairs is an unofficial memorial for the 185 individuals who died in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake:

We packed our car with supplies and left Christchurch next morning. Valda was driving the car across the South Island to Greymouth when two of us were taking a scenic train ride:

The train trip is design for tourist only and it rides both directions from Christchurch to Greymouth and back on the same day. We truly enjoyed the ride even I was sure we would enjoyed the car ride as well. Here are few photos taken through the train window: