Hanmer Springs

The day after the our train journey, we hopped in a mini-van for the 90-minute trip to Hanmer Springs. Hanmer - note it's not spelt Hamner! - is an alpine village in the foothills of the Southern Alps and boasts some very nice - and a little pricey - thermal pools. The weather had cleared up a bit - it poured on our first day in Christchurch - and we went on two lengthy walks around the town. One up Conical Hill - you can see Dan having a rest on the way up, as he clearly doesn't have the stamina to match my pace - and the other following the Dog stream up some more hills. We had snapped a lot of nature-type pictures, some of which are on display here. As you can see, most of the trees here are not native and so lose their leaves, making Hanmer seem a lot more autumnal than Wellington, which has many evergreen native trees. After our long trek, we soaked the evening away in the thermal pools - along with every other resident of and visitor to Hanmer it seemed!