After our mountain adventures in Arthur’s Pass we travelled back through Christchurch and on to the small town of Timaru for two nights.

As a small town they have the standard business hours somewhere between 9:00 AM and 4:30 PM. Our bus arrived in town at 4:30 PM so by the time we walked to our hotel and checked in then dropped off our stuff to head out for a walk, the street looked like this:

The fronts of the shops looked really nice! But everything was closed.

So we walked down the road past the park to see what we could see.

It’s nice that the town was setup with a large friendly park between the retail and industrial parts and the sea. We watched a lot of people take advantage of the stairs and walking paths around the water. We also saw school kids running around the place the following afternoon playing tennis, basketball and just generally being kids creating an appropriate level of park noise. Maybe the people of Timaru valued open space for parks and set aside land for the community because they’re good people. Or maybe it’s also because there aren’t a lot of people here, that all the land by the sea hasn’t been privatized and developed into giant condos or gated communities.

I was impressed by these trash cans. I loved that they had pictures on the front and then laughed because I always thought these sort of signs over the trash cans in Seattle were poorly executed and confusing. I remember them as one giant sign with … — I was impressed by these trash cans. I loved that they had pictures on the front and then laughed because I always thought these sort of signs over the trash cans in Seattle were poorly executed and confusing. I remember them as one giant sign with everything, instead of three different ones.

Or maybe it’s both? In any case, it was very nice.

We were craving some Indian food and stopped in this place to stuff ourselves. IT WAS SUPER DELICIOUS. We inhaled Paneer Pakoras, Lamb Pasanda, Aaloo Baingan and Naan. It was one of the best meals we’ve had; definitely remarkable.

Oh look, a bar!

An American Pale Ale and Velvet Stout. Mmmm.

Two doors down was a bar serving one of the local NZ brews, so we stopped in for some Monteith’s, at Monteith’s. There was a soccer (football) game between Sydney and Auckland and we stayed to watch the end of the match. The place was busy but not overly crowded. Afterwards we went back to our hotel and talked to the bartender for a little while. It was her birthday! So we wished her happy birthday and then got out of there because they closed at 10:00 PM.

Our second day we walked down to the i-Site to get some information on local walks. We walked through the town, past the local park and onto the coast walking track.

During the walk we stumbled upon a cove that had a pile of the BEST SKIPPING STONES Ryan had ever seen. He nearly lost it. Torn between stuffing his pockets with rocks or alternatively, launching them all into the water as quickly as he could, either way he was amused for a solid 30 minutes. Eventually he shifted focus because I think he was tired and the tide was coming in.

All along the walk we saw beautiful ocean scenes like this:

That evening we saw the movie Creed to honor our roots and Rocky and reminisce about cheesesteaks. It was a great film and reminded us of the hollywood version of South Philly.

The most amazing part of Timaru is at night around 9:30 or so you can just walk yourself over to the MARINE PARADE (next to the pier where they are unloading freight from tanker ships at all hours) and watch little blue penguins hang out on the beach. As mentioned before they sort of stink a little like fish but are always cute. Watching them walk on the sand is a ridiculous joy!

Later, a cat walked us home all the way back to our hotel.

Overall, the small town of Timaru was a nice, brief stop on our way around the south island.

Next up, Dunedin, Invercargill and Stewart Island, including our walk along the Rakiura Track!