Day 14. Christchurch NZ. A double dose of culture

Took a rather curious shuttle bus sporting plastic penguins on its roof out to the Antartic centre in the morning.

This is a fascinating place rammed with everything you'd ever need to know about the coldest place on the planet (not Whitley Bay seafront on a December morning apparently).

It manages to combine lots of educational features with a few entertaining diversions. Not least, the resident colony of penguins, which provided the low-brows amongst us with a few laughs.

Undoubted highlight though, was donning some heavy duty anoraks and entering the Antartic storm simulator. 2 minutes at wind chill factor minus 28 and you pretty quickly realise that Scott and Oates were probably not quite the full shilling.

We then visited the City's Modern Art gallery. Housed in a striking building which is a work of art in itself, the collection was just about the right size to hold our goldfish-like attention. Lots of filmic stuff, that was more hit than miss, a particularly clever sculpture made out of old corned beef tins and a few abstract paintings that Wend loved and my dad would've hated.

Stuffed ourselves with some quality nosh in the evening to celebrate our 6 years of wedded bliss.

Day 13. Christchurch NZ. The garden City.

The chilly breeze as we stepped off the plane at 6am came as a sharp reminder that we were well and truly out of the tropics, the suntan lotion could be put to the bottom of the bag and our masks and snorkels mothballed for the next 2 months.

That said, we quickly found Christchurch to be a most agreeable place. No litter, no dog poo and not a chav in sight.

It's supposed to have a population exceeding 350,000 yet somehow has the look and feel of a town half the size. Think Tunbridge Wells without the snootiness.

Luckily our room was unoccupied, so despite the early hour we checked in straight away and caught some decent kip before heading out to explore. It's our anniversary tomorrow so we decided to push the boat out and stay somewhere central and semi posh. 'Off the square' is one of those small, hip places normally frequented by thrusting young entrepreneurs and annoying media types, so eyebrows were raised when we tipped up with our backpacks and muddy hiking boots.

Sod 'em, I said to Wend, our money's as good as anyone's.

I was in dire need of a haircut, so first stop was the barbershop, not just for my number 2 all over, but also to glean some local knowledge from the lady weilding the scissors. She did a great job of making me even more handsome than usual and recommended a couple of good cafes before pointing us in the direction of the Botanical gardens.

So 6 weeks after visiting Kew with mam and dad, and 5 days after checking out Rarotonga's gardens, we made our way to another Botanical eden. But that's ok, you can do uncool stuff like this when you get to our age.

Christchurch's answer to Kew is a little smaller but no less impressive. Spring is just about getting going here, so the trees and shrubs are approaching top form, especially when set against a clear, vivid blue sky.
A pot of tea and a nice slice of cake on the lawns just about put the lid on a very civilized afternoon.

Day12. Rarotonga. End of part one.

Our last day on Rarotonga, and after a few days of cloudy skies the sunshine returned to provide some quality beach action.

The flight to Christchurch doesn't leave until 2am tomorrow and because we'll be crossing the international dateline we'll doubtless be completely disorientated again by the time we land.

The main reason we came to the Cook Islands was to ease ourselves into the trip, kick the jet lag into touch, and begin the NZ leg of the journey nicely refreshed. Now, of course, we'll be as bewildered as we were when we crawled off the plane 10 days ago. Oh well, it hasn't exactly been a chore staying here.

Our verdict? Absolutely love the place. The people are exceptionally warm and genuine, Rarotonga is gobsmackingly beautiful and we really couldn't have had a better start to our adventure.

Now for New Zealand.

Day 11. Rarotonga. Bye bye bike, hello kiwi couple.

Last day of our week's bike hire, so we took a final spin around the island in the morning. Wasn't happy about handing back the keys, in fact Wend came over all emotional and patted the petrol tank as if she was saying farewell to a much loved puppy.

We'd met a quirky kiwi couple over a beer yesterday and arranged to have dinner with them this evening.

The bloke, Chris, is one of those livestock auctioneers who do the sing-songy thing into the microphone on marketday. And I can only imagine he's fantastic at his job because he babbles on like a baboon on barbiturates when he's on his holidays.

Him and his missus, Shannon could stick the booze away too, so it ended up being quite a lively old evening. They've invited us for dinner at their place in Raglan on the west coast of NZ's north island. If nothing else it'll be a free scoff, so we'll probably take them up on it.

Day 10. Rarotonga. Church n Surf pt.2

Off to church again this morning for our weekly fix of redemption and free sandwiches. Guests were encouraged to take an even more active role this week and the Deacon asked for a representitive from each visiting nation to say a few words after the service.

The Brits were a bit backward in coming forward so the missus pushed me to the front of the congregation to mumble a few words of thanks for their kindness and hospitality. Difficult enough in normal circumstances, but bordering on impossible when you've half an egg and cress sandwich in your gob. Cheers Wend.

Afternoon on the beach then treated ourselves to a takeaway curry which we ate while watching the sun go down. Nice.

Day 9. Rarotonga. And.....relax.

Our laziest day so far. Went into town to have a mooch around the market where Wend bought a sarong/sheet/tablecloth thingy adorned with bright orange hibiscus blooms. A snip at five quid - which is more than can be said for the dodgy chicken stew we paid twice that for.

Said our final goodbyes to Daniel and Katrin who were off to finish their holiday with 3 weeks in NZ. Lucky sods, wish we could do something like that.

Spent the afternoon on the beach then Wend cooked some kind of Dolmio based pasta concoction for dinner. Dolmio seems to be big over here, and given the proliferation of fabulous locally grown produce, that's just weird.

Day 8. Rarotonga. Mystery tour.

Daniel and Katrin's last full day and as a parting gift they organise a magical mystery tour for us.

With typical German efficiency a complex itinerary had been drafted, with every minute of every hour accounted for. Intrigued to find out what was in store to be honest, as we thought we'd seen and done all there was to do on the island.

The tour kicked off with a 20 minute motorbike ride along the inner road where we saw some goats, chickens and, of course, several pigs. Magical stuff indeed. Excitement only reached full fever pitch however when we came across Rarotonga's only scrap metal yard. A bit like any other scrap yard really, but with palm trees.

Lunch was pizza and beer under yet more palm trees. Then we were treated to the tour's main attraction; a 15 minute photo opportunity in the hospital car park.

Actually, I'm being unfair on Daniel here. He'd done his homework and discovered the hospital sits on one of the island's most elevated spots, so the views were pretty damned spectacular.

Sadly, our tropical pizza had taken a tad longer than anticipated which threw everything out of kilter. Something had to give, so we abandoned a late afternoon snorkelling session and made instead for the Botanical gardens.

Despite not being deemed worthy of a listing in any guidebook we could find, the gardens were superb. All kinds of weird and wonderful plantlife spread over a hundred acres or so, with lots of curious follies nestling beneath giant ferns and whatnot. No-one on the front gate either, so we nipped in for free and had the place to ourselves.

In the evening Daniel led us to Vaima's, the poshest eatery here, for a slap-up farewell dinner.

Unfortunately, he hadn't made reservations, so we ended up at the island's 9th poshest eatery, for what was still an extremely pleasant meal. We thanked them for organising our day of mystery, toasted our new friendship and promised to organise some kind of Anglo-Deutch exchange trip when we return home.