Good afternoon all from Christchurch international airport.

As we got here surprisingly early I shall update you on the proceedings following our last blog entry…

So yesterday morning (Friday) we treated ourselves to a lie in seeing as we had no stupid 10am checkout, so after arising at around 10(ish) and performing such fascinating duties as washing and packing the majority of our stuff we departed for Hoyts cinema to catch the 2:30 showing of Angels and Demons.

Did we mention how unbelievably excited we were about this!?

Personally, at home I don't read a great deal, it was only since coming away (and some gentle persuasion from Aimee) that prompted me to read Dan Browns books and well, there not half bad are they?

Anyway, we arrived in plenty of time and ensured that we had the best spot in the house (middle of the back row), also sneaking our own supply of sweets and water in (we're still on a budget after all!).

Now, have you ever read reviews of films that came about as the result of a book, the majority of the time along with plenty of negative or at least disappointed reviews from people who had read the book originally?

Well, I wont go into the film itself in case anyone reading this hasn't seen it yet but after leaving the cinema I think I now know what they were getting at.

There just seemed to be so much cut from the story line of the book as well as a couple of major changes in the actual flow of the film that left me personally a little disappointed. Aimee had read the book as well but a good while ago and couldn't really remember what happened. She loved it though!

After departing the cinema we headed back to the centre of the city and in particular to 'Dux De Lux' bar/restaurant which is famous here for producing its own selection of beers and actually won the New Zealand bar of the year award for 2006 and 2008.

It's a short walk from town so we trotted off before spotting it a few blocks down. it's a massive place, with two separate bars within the one building alongside the restaurant area and finally a huge outdoor patio area.

We ordered a selection tray of their six home made beers and settled down under one of the outdoor heaters to sample them all. They were nice, although not quite up there with the Speights or Monteiths ales (in my humble opinion at least). They had one ginger beer (which Aimee loved) along with a couple of lagers, a stout and a coupe of bitters.

Worth a visit if your in Christchurch anyway. The food smelt amazing as well but well, as we're on a budget we opted for a sly visit to Burger King just down the road…

That was it for the day really, the only other thing of note that happened today was me realising that I'd somehow conspired to lose my bank card.

Well done me.

So after some brief flapping it was eventually sorted and we could retire for the night a little happier.
The following morning (today), we were up bright and early (06:45 to be precise) and eventually up, showered and ready to depart by about 09:30 after messing about emptying all the waste tanks on the camper. Im seriously NOT going to miss this part of the camper experience.

Our flight departs Christchurch airport at 14:35 so after our ordeal (and that's putting it mildly) at the Apollo branch in Auckland we had decided we would get to the Christchurch depot as early as we could to allow for plenty of time for them to mess about.

As it turned out though, the place was deserted but for the single employee sat behind his desk so after wandering in he had us sorted within about 10 minutes!

He was even polite and helpful.

Jesus. We were in shock.

In all seriousness though, the guy was dead nice and asked us how our trip had been whilst sorting the paperwork and offering us a free lift to the airport. God knows where they found that moron in Auckland but he was mentioned in our feedback form anyway!

Well, that's it for New Zealand as were now sat in the airport waiting for departures to open before heading off for our flight to Sydney to begin about 5 months in Australia.

We've been here in New Zealand for a little over 5 weeks and it has FLOWN by. We've seen a lot in that time and its been amazing. Fantastic scenery, some of which id argue you simply wont find anywhere else in the world.

If you plan on coming here though id definitely say try and come in summer, especially to the south island as its seriously cold at this time of year (their autumn).

I think that's it for now, we'll speak to you all again after settling in to our hostel in Sydney.

Cant wait to see what the Aussies have to offer now…

Love to all

A & M xx