January 23, 2026
Our plane landed in Christchurch about 5 minutes early at 10:30 am. We crossed the international date line, so it was now January 23 and we had skipped the entire day of January 22 while in the air.
We walked off the plane and into the duty free area, where we immediately saw the place to buy our SIM cards to get New Zealand phone numbers and 10 GB data plans good for the duration of our trip. We picked the company that had nobody waiting in line (this was the same company that we had used before), and the phone setup was fast and easy.
Going through customs was astonishingly fast. New Zealand now has an app that we were able to use to fill out all of the required customs forms while we were still at home, within 24 hours of the start of our international flight. That alone saved a lot of time. I had hiking boots and hiking poles to declare, and Heinrich had the same plus spices, so we entered the "Something to Declare" line. What surprised us was this line was before we had collected our baggage which contained the items to declare. An agent asked us to clarify what we were declaring, and I told her I had cleaned both the boots and poles before we left. She gave us a green card with a line number on it. We then collected our luggage and followed the path to our line, another agent collected our green cards, and we passed the sniffing dogs without incident. Then we were out the double doors and into the airport lobby. And we were done!
The shuttle to drive us to the rental car area was waiting for us when we walked outside. And there was no long line to wait to get our rental car. By the time we got our luggage into the car, we were already an hour an a half ahead of my predicted exit time!
Our rental car is a Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid 4-door sedan, rented with Apex Car Rentals. This is the same agency that we used for the New Zealand trip in 2023. They rent slightly older cars that are still in excellent condition, and they have no fee for an extra driver which is really important for us.
Our destination for the day was Hanmer Springs, about a 90-minute drive north of Christchurch. I got the honors of starting the drive and getting to remember what it was like to drive on the left side of the road. And immediately there were about 6 roundabouts (some double lane) to navigate, so that was loads of fun! But actually I remembered quickly what was involved and did not even once turn on the windshield wipers when trying to use the turn signals!
We stopped at the New World Ravenswood grocery store to stock up on a couple of days worth of food, and of course we had to get our must haves: Whittakers chocolate, steamed puddings, baked oaty slices, and L&P sodas! It was about that time when I realized we had forgotten to stop at an ATM at the airport to get New Zealand cash, and we also had neglected to fill our water bottles so we had nothing to drink. Back to the store we went a second time to buy a couple of cold peach teas (also useful later on as freezer bottles to store ice for our chilly bin).
Heinrich took over driving. I had planned a couple of intermediate stops along the way. The first place was the Kowai River Walk. We parked and saw that the area was soaking wet and uninviting for a hike, so we drove on. Next was a detour off the main highway due to bridge construction. It rejoined Highway 1, and then almost immediately we turned onto the side road to Hanmer Springs. A second planned stop was Frog Rock, but we missed the turnoff due to construction right in the parking area. The third planned stop was the Weka Pass walkway to Maori rock drawings, but Google Maps routed us onto some private road which was obviously not correct. The gate was closed and there was a large flock of sheep behind it. Since we saw no sign for the correct turnoff, we ended up skipping this. I made a note to get better directions or have a more detailed map in hand for some of these places to avoid these hiccups in the future.
Just after the turnoff to Hanmer Springs we stopped at the Waiau River Lookout. This was a nice view that I remember we stopped at briefly in 2019 on our way to Kaikoura in the opposite direction. The view was lovely again today, even with the cloudy and rainy weather conditions. It actually started to rain again lightly when I stepped out of the car to take a photo.
Hanmer Springs was only a 10-minute drive further up the road. We stopped at the I-site visitor center where I obtained information on the hiking trails in the area and bought a local map. The lady at the front desk told me that almost half of my planned hikes were unfortunately closed due to the recent heavy rains. So immediately I knew we were going to have a more relaxing stay here than originally planned!
We checked into our accommodations at the Forest Peak Motel: a nice quiet one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen. We reconfigured all of our luggage for the extended stay on the South Island, and then we had our dinner: chicken alfredo, a salad, and "steamy puds" (that was another name for our steamed chocolate pudding desserts).
It was still early evening and the weather had cleared with partly cloudy skies, so I decided to go on an evening hike on my own. It really helps being the middle of summer and far south where the sun doesn't set until after 9 pm. So I still had a few hours of daylight to explore. Our motel was within a short walking distance of one of the main trail areas that had not been closed. I went on the Woodland Walk and ended up hiking a couple of miles before turning around. The forest was really beautiful. Parts of the trail passed through areas that had freshly cut trees, so it smelled like Christmas with all of the tall pines around.
There was a nice meadow area with several picnic tables and a view of the mountains in the distance.
