Day 26- Ride around Christchurch, pack up and have a surprise guest!

Thank god…..we had a sleep in finally today being awake at about 7.00am. After showering and having breakfast, the plan was to meet at the coffee shop to get the daily fix ahead of Chris leading Steve and I on a tour of Christchurch and John and Ian heading back home to Dunedin.

So we arrived at the coffee shop, ordered our coffees and sat down for a chat and a group of men dressed in suits plus a well dressed lady. I thought nothing of it as they all said hello as they went in to order their coffee. Chris and Ian immediately recognised the leader of the group being the NZ Prime Minister! Wow here we are in a coffee shop and the PM comes in to get his coffee!

Anyway after he and his team got their coffee they came out again and had a chat with us all. The PM was incredibly interested in our journey and the fact that Steve and I were from Australia! He mentioned he was travelling to Melbourne soon fit an ASEAN meeting and to see his daughter who is studying at Melbourne University.

He was very kind and agreed to have a photo with us as below

After coming down from this unique experience we said goodbye to John and Ian and were on our way on the ride through Christchurch. It was a 24 km ride which was delightful in good weather at about 22 degrees.

We stopped for lunch and a lovely National Trust type house which is the former home of one of the early European settlers at Christchurch.

The tour included see several of the sites where there were fatalities as a result of the earthquake.

We arrived back at Chris’s home at about 2.30 pm and it was time to clean our bikes and pack them in boxes for the trip home. The cleaning exercise needs to be thorough as the border force check in Australia can be difficult if there is dirt or soil on any of our bikes or gear.

The bike cleaning took about 2 hours !

After this it was shower time ahead of Chris and Steve doing the financial reconciliation of the trip.

The day was uplifting in a way to see the special guest at coffee but sad in another way as we say goodbye tomorrow.

I will do a summary of the ride tomorrow

Today’s pictures are:

Our team with the NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luzon… really down to earth bloke. He was Ian’s boss when he was CEO at Air New Zealand

The route today

Memorial at the site of one of the building that collapsed in the earthquake killing 18 people

Cafe and punting boats on the Avon River

Lunch venue

Dinner last night at Thai Restaurant

Great food as we ate it all up!!!