Hello and Good Morning New Zealand. We arrived into Christchurch at a stupid hour, 5am. I tried to crash out in the airport lounge and catch a few minutes shut eye. Eventually we had to move and make our way to the hostel. The hostel was nice, small and homely, but the weather was awful, cold and miserable. Christchurch wasn't the prettiest of places due to the horrific earthquake they had a few years back. Most of the centre is totally demolished and it wasn't a nice place to be. I'm sure if we had visited before the earthquake it would have been lovely, you can see some reminder on how it previously looked, but now, all that was gone. We were a little negative, as the weather change was too extreme from the baking hot sunshine we had experienced in Melbourne, no matter where we had ended up, I think we would have still been down about leaving Australia. We hadnt planned for New Zealand and once we had started to read about the buses and more importantly the price of them, we were even more miserable. We weighed up the cost of hiring a campervan, and spoke to a few people, who all said you must get your own transport for travelling around New Zealand. We finally agreed, we would hire a campervan for 3 weeks to see most of the South island. Once we were on the road and saying goodbye to Christchurch we eventually relaxed and were happy once again.

Next stop Arthurs Pass. Beep beep.