After a large and lazy breakfast in the Bailey’s Irish pub round the corner, we visited the cathedral and completed the walking tour, taking in the Botanical Gardens and Museum for good measure. The Maori Galleries are informative and demonstrate clearly how the authorities are conscious of promoting the culture of the indigenous local tribes. I had not realised that the islands were uninhabited until settled by the Polynesians 800 years ago – just about the time that the Rose & Crown was chalking up a couple of dozen landlords. You can see why Warwick Castle draws the crowds!
Our Tourist Combo Ticket gave us a ride on the Gondola which climbs the local volcano – great views but breezy and overcast. We drove down into Lyttelton which is a tiny town with a dry dock, a small contained port and a cruise ship jetty. The restaurant recommended by the LP was up for sale and everything else was closed, so we drove round the headland to Governor’s Bay and the hotel where we had hot soup. So much for winter sunshine. However, most other folk seem to be trolling about in shorts and flip-flops – we are wearing all our layers and shivering.
Our evening meal in a modern place in a strip of similar establishments was chosen for having gurnard on the menu, on a stylish risotto. When it came, it was on a bed of mashed veg, which in my case was cold. We complained, and thereafter everything we ordered was on the house. The maître d’ was a young man originally from Surrey and seemed very apologetic – and kept being so, prompted by the waitress to greater excesses of generosity. Sadly, we felt we could prevail upon his guilt no further and had to leave for a late-night stroll through the mock Gothic greystone civic buildings, the Spanish Mission streetscapes, the wrought ironwork balconies, bridges and balustrades and frequent 19th century clapboard houses, often in punctilious repair.