Plan B enacted – 28 January 2021


After much research and consideration we came to the conclusion that if we could rent a car and drive to Nelson we could still do the  Great Taste Cycle Trail. It would mean, though that we would have to return to Queenstown to pick up the car.

I checked with VW to see where they were with the car and was told that at the earliest I would have the car was on Friday.  Given that news, we decided to rent a car for a week or so and travel up to Nelson to do our ride.  We found that a Toyota RAV4 would enable us to put the bikes in the back of it and the cost was not too prohibitive even though all my instincts were saying from an environmental point of view it was a bad move.  I had worked out that as we were able to take the bikes it meant a significant saving on hiring bikes for the The Great Taste Cycle Trail which more than compensated for the additional rental car cost. 

VW were somewhat relieved that the pressure had come off them so now they have a week or so to resolve the problem!

Go Rentals was at the airport which was only a kilometre from the hotel, so we walked there and picked it up.  Compared to my little car it is a monster.  However, once we got it to the hotel we were able to easily put the bikes in  and then fitted our luggage around them.

It was around 11:30am that we bade farewell to the Ramada and the lovely staff there.  They had followed our situation with interest and also because it was so quiet I am sure they liked our money. Bev and I joked that maybe there was a secret agreement between the repairers and Ramada to prolong their jobs so that guests had to stay longer.

Our route to Christchurch took us through Arrowtown where we got a bottle of wine for our hosts and the most delicious freshly baked scones and coffee to sustain us, then through Cromwell, the Lindis Pass and Tekapo.  We had some wonderful views of Aorangi Mt Cook as we passed through the Mackenzie Country. First it was shrouded in cloud and then that cleared away with the peak dominating everything around it.  We had coffee break at Tekapo and then continued through to Christchurch.  One of the joys of the car was that it had adaptive cruise control which meant on the long straights I was able to use it to good effect.  As we headed further north, the Southern Alps looked like they had had another dusting of snow overnight from a front that had gone through.

Finally we arrived in a cool and overcast Christchurch

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