Once again we arrived in Christchurch and since we hadn't seen anything last time we decided to walk and have a look around. First of all we had to found our hostel, so with our backpacks on we walked about 30 minutes before we found it. Feeling lighter without our lovely bags we walked to the red zone in the city. Christchurch suffered a bad earthquake in Feb 2011 and the city is still earily quiet and derilict, the red zone is just full of ruble and fences blocking everything off. We felt weird taking pictures of the destruction and didn't undertsnad why the bus chose to come here as its hard to imagine what it wa slike before! After all the walking we treated ourselves to a chinese (chips and sweet and sour sauce) and headed back as we were up early for our flight to Auckland.

On our way to the airport the next moring our driver Gary gave us a tour and commentary about what happened as he lived here at the time! It made us very sad and quiet as they won't be able to rebuild the city for at least another 10 years because the still have tremors constantly which destroys what they've rebuilt. When the earthquake happened the bridges over the river collapsed, no one had phone signal and so couldnt get home from work etc, very scary! Schools still have to share so children only go to school either in the morning or afternoon so we felt very lucky to live in the uk for once! After a very quick flight we got back to Auckland and had arranged to meet one of the boys again so we could go to the cinema! With our bags we went to see Breaking Dawn (YAY) soo good and then we headed for the train and back to Doms> Once agin we were looked after well and felt fresh for our flight to Melbourne.

New Zealand has been incredable we have done so much and met some great people! We think we are ready for Australia now with the hot weather and definatley on the countdown to Christmas! Sending lots of love to you all xxxxxxxxx Meg and Amy xxxxxx