I have never been in such a consistently beautiful, unspoiled country as New Zealand. I spent two weeks there with my husband, Lee, and my favorite brother, Charles and his wife, Carol, and every day we saw more incredible vistas than the day before.
We met in Christchurch at the Hotel George. It is a premier hotel that is too modest to call their four star reputation to our attention. We ate breakfast in their restaurant the first morning and our meals were so pretty that I spent more time taking pictures of my meal than eating it. Christchurch is the oldest city in New Zealand with the strongest link to England and you can tell. We walked through one of their many gardens and ran into students who were dressed like they were in merry old England. We found out that the schools there attract students from all over the world and their uniforms haven't changed in hundreds of years.
Christchurch is known as the garden city of New Zealand and we understood why. There are colorful and beautiful gardens everywhere. We went to the center of the city on the free tourist trolly and watched a man sized chess match (yes, people were moving around huge knights, queens, kings, pawns, etc.). We toured their art galleries and visited one of their many four star outdoor restaurants. We slept well that night in our feather beds with visions of a road trip dancing in our heads.
The next morning, we picked up our rental car and took off for our adventure into the park reserve that is New Zealand.
