Took the inland scenic route which was lovely to Christchurch which only took a couple of hours. When we arrived at our motel we brought in all of our luggage to repack for the journey home on the airplanes.
Tonite we had booked for a Maori experience which was a dinner and show. I had said to Larry, as the Maori culture here is still one of the strongest indigenous cultures still very much alive in a country that is teaming with immigration, I thought it would be a must do to learn about them..we noticed that most of the towns and streets still retained the original Maori names unlike some of other countries where they forget the heritage of the lands that were originally populated by the early settlers and native peoples (I wonder who?).
I got a chance to feed some babies, pretty good deal the tourist pay entry then buy food to feed their deer. Also a couple of pics of the mountains west of Christchurch where we're going tomorrow, check the snow at the end of summer.
At any rate we were treated to an outdoor presentation of a little of their heritage on a Maouri reserve and then a dinner that was cooked the way they would've cooked. The dances and songs resembled very much Polynesian influence. The audience participated in it as you will see from the pictures. Check out Larry's idea of a warrior chief! We had a lot of fun. We dined with a lovely young couple with their 2 kids from Brisbane.
Tomorrow we are going on a two hour train trip to Arthur's Pass where we will spend the middle of the day hiking and checking out the mining areas and deserted towns and then back to the city. Then out to a surprise dinner that I had not expected before we fly to Auckland, stay overnight and then fly to Sydney, Vancouver and then home. We hope to see a little bit of Christchurch before we leave, but we don't have much time. There is a huge amount do construction here, it would appear all the unsafe buildings have been torn down.
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