NEW ZEALAND!

My beautiful Grant and I are finally in NZ! We flew into Christchurch at 11.40pm on Tuesday, so our adventure really began on Wednesday morning (after a night's sleep in the airport hotel).
Our hire car - a Nissan Bluebird with very retro features such as a tan interior and suede armrest (not to mention the tortoiseshell trimmings) - has been great, though petrol here is $2.10p/L so perhaps we should start rolling it down the hills in neutral..

Christchurch really is an amazing sight. The 2010/2011 earthquakes have all but flattened more than half the city, with every second building in the midst of construction work or abandoned and dilapidated. Reminders of the earthquakes are everywhere, lopped trees, walls being held up by shipping crates, closed roads and an abundance of fluro yellow vests. I've been moved by the impact of the earthquakes, not just the fact that a whole city has been close to ruined, but by the city's ability to bounce back. Pop-up shops, quirky artwork and sculptures and brand new buildings are everywhere. One of the coolest things we have seen is a shopping mall called Re-Start which is constructed out of shipping containers!

Christchurch Cathedral. That scaffold is where the spire stood.

A common sight, random bits of surviving rubble

Weirdly enough, another common sight. These guys are everywhere!

The Re:START Mall

We started our day at the botanical gardens, which were lovely but not thriving, and not many flowers were around. The rose garden was quite pretty, with lovely red, pink and peachy orange roses abound. We met several ducks at the botanical gardens and saw two really big fish.

The prettiest part of the gardens..

We went to the museum today and 'oohed and aahhed' at Maori wood and bone carvings, woven baskets and an awesome 8ft canoe carved from a tree. There were also some gorgeous artifacts from early European settlers, such as hand made shoes, a penny farthing, spectacular crockery and vases, and furniture.

The 7 year old in me just exploded with excitement. Spectacular dolls house.

Shoes (for people with very small ankles apparently)

We also drove through Lyttelton and Gordon's Bay, a few kms out of Christchurch. The scenery was gorgeous. Grant pointed out that there were no safety railing and a 100km/h speed limit while winding around the cliffside, so we drove slowly and slightly in the middle of the road. We went for a walk along the coast (freezing cold), and drove aimlessly down a road that eventually led us to some sort of Christian summercamp...

These are taken about half way between Lyttelton and Gordon's Bay

 
Tonight is our last night in Christchurch, tomorrow we are heading to Dunedin, where my dad was born. So far we are relaxed, impressed, and crazy excited for the next couple of weeks exploring the land of the long white cloud :)

Happy chappy!!