"Red Hat Society"

Sunday 10 December

First task this morning was to wave the coach off, with the passengers not traveling on the Rail Spectacular tour, and our cases. We should all meet up again in Christchurch. Our train was not due in to Bleinheim Station until 13.30, so we had a morning to ourselves to fill. A waitress at breakfast had told us about a Farmers Market just out of town, so we arranged for a shuttle bus to take us.

We were dropped off at a large green field where lots of stalls were already set up. There were about thirty stalls, all selling local produce such as olive oil and tapenades, wines, fruit and vegetables, hazelnuts, cheeses and fresh baked breads and cakes. Most of the stalls had free tastings and we picked at everything – cubes of bread with relishes, marmalades, and fruits - feeling quite full up by the end. The stallholders were so keen to tell us about their small businesses, how they set up – many were immigrants from Europe about ten years ago, when the new Labour Government encouraged everyone to settle here – and now have thriving cottage industries, very labour intensive – like the Marguerite wine company, run by a Dutch couple and a few extra labourers at grape picking time – she cleans all the bottles, makes all the labels, and does the marketing. Everyone had an interesting tale – one olive oil man imports all his bottles from Italy – a huge expense – so cannot now afford to freight to the UK, where he used to sell to Fortnum and Masons! I enjoyed a berry smoothie using local fruits, we brought fabulous raspberries, spicy hazelnuts (which later affected Colin’s eyes and made them red and watery!) and cakes.

The shuttle bus collected us an hour later and took us back to the hotel to collect our hand luggage and on into town for a wander round before we all met up again for lunch. Most of the shops were closed, but a few newsagents and Tshirt shops were open. Although it was warm in the sun, it was also fairly windy, so we decided to sit inside for lunch. We all ordered snacks (our breakfast and tastings meant we weren’t starving). On a nearby table, a group of about sixteen ladies all wearing large red hats and purple dresses were having lunch. All were wearing lots of tinsel and flashing Christmas decorations. I went and spoke to a couple of the ladies to find out what they were up to. They all belonged to the “Red Hat Society” a group for women over 50 years of age (if less than 50 years old you wear a pink hat) who meet regularly just to have fun – good company, good food and drinks, and interesting conversation in pleasant surroundings – sounds a great idea to me – a bit like our schoolgirls group, but more local and lots of dressing up – perhaps we should think of a uniform – based on the old tudor rose (our blazer badge)? Bronwen – a lady wearing a pink hat – explained that she had heard of the organization – it was founded in America and is now an international concern - and she had put an advert in the local paper inviting anyone interested in joining such a group to come to an evening of wine and nibbles at her house - ten ladies arrived. Since then the group has expanded to about thirty. Today was the Annual Centre Parade (happens each year around this time) and they were taking part – hence the early lunch. One older lady (in her eighties at least) fell asleep after her main course and had to woken her for dessert! There was lots of chatter and laughter and everyone seemed to be having a great time – the main aim of the group.

We wandered to the station along the main high street of Blenheim, to find that someone had been out and cordoned off all the pavements with orange tape whilst we had been at lunch – obviously the Parade route – such a shame we wouldn’t be in town when it started around 14.00. We did see Father Christmas in a proper red suit and beard (I would think he was very warm as the sun was still shining warmly) and all the children had blue balloons. There was quite a party atmosphere, as friends and families met and began to line the streets.

The station was an old 1880’s style wooden building, facing a single track line. The train goes from Christchurch to Picton and back again each day – just one train a day. We were warned it might be late, but it arrived only minutes after 13.30 and we piled into our reserved seats in carriage ‘T’. There were only three carriages – S, T and X, plus a viewing car – which turned out to be a gutted carriage with no windows, just a metal bar to stop you falling out, where you could stand and watch the world go by. We visited this car later in the journey when we were going past the seal colony, and saw large fat brown seals sunning themselves on the rocks, as the waves crashed ashore nearby, while at the same time passing the snow covered hills of the Kaikoura Range. The mountains came right down to the road and track, which edged the back of the beach for more than half of the way. It was stunning – at one time there were seals one side and snow-capped mountains on the other and you didn’t know which way to look or take photos.

We arrived in Christchurch about twenty minutes late, but Darryl was waiting for us We did a quick flip around the town on the coach, with Darryl giving us a commentary to help us find our way around later – we were on our own for food tonight – before arriving at the hotel. We didn’t meet them but apparently the Sri Lankan cricket team were also staying at our hotel, and the New Zealand cricket team at the Millennium Hotel next door (there has been some bad press about unsportsmanship during the match dominating the papers here for the past few days).

Our cases were already in our rooms, so we just had a quick wash and brush up before going out to explore for a seafood restaurant. The Concierge was very helpful recommending “Lobster” and even showing us a menu. We followed his directions only to find it was shut on Sundays!. We had driven though a street affectionately known as ‘The Strip’ earlier with Darryl, which had several restaurants, so we made for there.

Christchurch is designed, like so many Antipodean towns and cities, on a grid system, which makes it very easy to navigate your way around. Here most of the streets are named after cities in England – such as Worcester, Durham, Oxford and Hereford – although the main street, and longest, passing through the central square, and a few kilometres in length, is called ‘Colombo’ – not sure why – perhaps some Sri Lankan influence in the early days (definitely not after Peter Falk’s Columbo on the television). Our hotel room overlooked the Square, with the Cathedral in the centre. Christchurch was founded by order of the Bishops and Archbishops and Government in England, who wanted a settlement for “God-fearing people” in this new land. Those willing to emigrate here, had to have a letter from their local parish priest to say they regularly attended Church. Without this letter, they were sent to North Island.

We decided on “Sticky Fingers”, a bistro style restaurant serving what sounded like great food. No tables were available for about a quarter of an hour, so we agreed to pass the time sampling cocktails at the bar – ‘Sex with the Barman’ and ‘Jamaica Me Crazy” were both very tasty. About half an hour later, we were shown to a table, and waited a while for menus – we should have known then, this would not be a short visit. We only ordered breads with pesto, tapenade and olives as entreés (they don’t call them “starters” over here) and this took another half an hour to arrive. Our waiter informed us at this time that one of the grills had just blown up, so main courses would be ‘slightly’ delayed! An hour later we were still waiting and beginning to feel past eating. On making enquiries we were informed it was being cooked as we spoke, but it took another fifteen minutes before our dishes arrived in front of us. It was very frustrating that people who came to the restaurant soon after us, had already devoured three courses (presumably none involving the offending grill) paid their bill and left. The food was good when it came – duck and venison – but marred by the wait. Needless to say, we didn’t stay for desserts or coffees, but made our way back to the hotel.

We still could not get connected by our card to the internet, so decided to use the hotel connection to post blogs, send and answer emails – as quickly as possible - it still took 35 minutes connected time, but hopefully we caught up a bit. We found an email from Trailfinders telling us of a change to the itinerary of our tour in South America, but that was good news as well, as it means the trip is going ahead!