Bypassing Christchurch

Thursday morning after a sleep in at Geraldine we check out of our site and have a brief look around town. A few boutique stores selling wool clothing. Wool is expensive. So we checked out the souvenir shops for some cheap trinkets.
A bit further North, we approach Christchurch. Due to recent events, which we can see the district is still reeling from, we will not be seeing central Christchurch. Instead passing through the outskirts near the airport we stop at the the International Antarctic Centre.
The International Antarctic Centre offers a few interesting activities but is seriously over-priced. $65 NZD per person. Maybe next time.
Around Christchurch the environment is unusually flat land broken up by wide, rocky rivers. Eventually we begin to cross some mountains on the final stretch to Kaikoura. The weather is starting to turn sour.
This night we copped our first rains. No big deal. We were cosy inside the van and just had to wait until the next morning to see what Kaikoura had to offer.