New Zealand - part 3 - The Journey Home

So we left the rainbow gathering; I had 2 days to drive back to Christchurch and get to the flight, the plan was to stay the first night in Takaka (an hour from the rainbow carpark), then drive slowly down the east coast, stay a night in Kaikoura and then get to the airport in the morning.
Saying goodbye to the rainbow was hard,

but Rapunzel will be back at our place in a month.
We had planned to camp with some of the rainbow people at a spot just out of Takaka, but in town I ran into the beautiful Angel, who was planning to stay in a hostel. it seemed like a great idea, and the hostel had a double room with a sofa for Littletree to sleep on.

There was a beautiful garden full of flowers, where we sat playing with Littletree and her big bag of M&Ms.
She spent the whole day sorting and re-sorting them, into colours, and then mixing the colours in different combinations.

First, Littletree sorted all the M&Ms into their colours, and pushed all the piles together to make what she called a "colour brain". Then she proceeded to pretend to be a kitten and eat them up off the floor.


We had a great night's sleep in a soft warm bed, and it was, of course, nice to wake up to the beautiful Angel snuggling with me

She even made me a fantastic breakfast!

We lazed around town for the morning, running into rainbows, before we finally hit the road, after lunch! (so much for an early start and a slow drive!)
We stopped at a supermarket, where I was excited to see this reserved space in the parking lot:

Seriously! that should be EVERYWHERE!
Littletree and I drove 6 hours, stopping several times on the way to play. At one beachside playground, we fed seagulls by had, they were flying so close! I could literally reach out and touch them! This pic was taken without zoom even:

more fantastic scenery later

we arrived in Kaikoura - a famous whale-watching resort town.
It took a bit of convincing to get a hostel that would let us check in for one night only on Christmas Eve, but we got a nice place, and hung out on the beach for a while.


Christmas Morning we woke up early, packed the car and lounged around the kitchen for a leisurely breakfast. On the road again, we had time to spare, stopping a lot in small towns to have a quick play on the playgrounds, and to eat picnics - had to eat up all the fruit before getting back to Australia's quarantine.

We got into Christchurch in good time, but then spent ages driving around to find a petrol station to fill the car - everything was shut, being Xmas morning! We returned the car, but then had to walk the one kilometre to the airport terminal - a tough hike for Littletree.

Christchurch airport is awesome - they had comfy sofas instead of plastic seats, and a kids play area, and videos to watch in a free mini-theatre, as well as a TV for kids. The flight was long and boring, but we arrived safe and sound

With Purple to pick us up at the airport and bring us home :)