Our first stage was to Kaiapoi, a little town on the river
Waimakiriri, where we had a good luncheon of whitebait, and rested
and fed the horses. From the window of the hotel I saw a few groups
of Maories; they looked very ugly and peaceable, with a rude sort of
basket made of flax fibres, or buckets filled with whitebait, which
they wanted us to buy. There are some reserved lands near Kaiapoi
where they have a very thriving settlement, living in perfect peace
and good-will with their white neighbours. When we set off again on
our journey, we passed a little school-house for their children.

We reached Leathfield that evening, only twenty-five miles from
Christchurch; found a nice inn, or accommodation-house, as roadside
inns are called here; had a capital supper and comfortable beds, and
were up and off again at daylight the next morning. As far as the
Weka Pass, where we stopped for dinner, the roads were very good,
but after that we got more among the hills and off the usual track,
and there were many sharp turns and steep pinches; but Mr. L--- is
an excellent whip, and took great care of us. We all got very weary
towards the end of this second day's journey, and the last two hours
of it were in heavy rain; it was growing very dark when we reached
the gate, and heard the welcome sound of gravel under the wheels. I
could just perceive that we had entered a plantation, the first
trees since we left Christchurch. Nothing seems so wonderful to me
as the utter treelessness of the vast Canterbury plains;
occasionally you pass a few Ti-ti palms (ordinarily called
cabbage-trees), or a large prickly bush which goes by the name of
"wild Irishman," but for miles and miles you see nothing but flat
ground or slightly undulating downs of yellow tussocks, the tall
native grass. It has the colour and appearance of hay, but serves
as shelter for a delicious undergrowth of short sweet herbage, upon