Wednesday 6th November Already I am beginning to lose track of days. Hooray, that means I am really on Holiday. We flew into New Zealand yesterday with first Quantas, and then Emirates from Sydney. Quantas was definitely more comfortable than the BA flight from the UK and I mastered lying down in a seat! Emirates had the best menu though, and the prettiest accessories of lilac pillow slips and the Air hostesses hats with their veils, not unlike those that you see on a medieval lady's pointy hat. Picking the camper up was fairly painless, and it was much larger than I had expected but we seemed to have been upgraded. There is a king sized bed as well as an effective shower and cooking facilities. Also included was a gadget that offered 'Tourist Radio'. As you drive along it plays as a normal radio, but when it senses that you are in range of something interesting it tells you about it. Very useful. We also hired a sat nav for reducing arguments. Then we drove to the nearest supermarket and then onto the nearest camp site for a very welcome early night. Even the fireworks didn't bother us, despite starting somewhat later than in the UK because it is light until nearly 9pm. Today was spent in nearby Christchurch. We took a bus tour advertised as the 'Rebuild Tour' and were amazed to see quite how much devastation the earthquakes had wrought. Many of the buildings still standing are due to be demolished and there were huge blocks of land that have already been cleared. However on the very positive side, the citizens and councils of Christchurch are taking the opportunity to plan their city for the better, making the centre much more open and green and making a better feature of the river Avon. Some of the more historic buildings are being renovated as far as possible and anything that is being saved is being upgraded 'earthquakewise', which will actually result in lower insurance premiums. The temporary cathedral was interesting having been constructed largely of cardboard tubes, and the shopping mall was made of ships containers stacked up and glass put into the sides.

Very innovative and almost chic. Apparently temporary bars sprang up very quickly and one of these had used old shopping trolleys (or trundlers as they are called over here) to make chairs. We have also had a couple of attempts to put this blog together but were unable to access the site so although I shall continue to write it you may not get it for a while. Whilst I was wifi wrestling, Dave had been looking at places to visit so when I finally gave up in disgust, we headed out to the Banks Peninsula and are currently in a camper van friendly car park overlooking the Akaroa harbour where we are staying for the night.