Well it was a pretty uneventful journey to Christchurch as we cross the Canterbury plains which are pretty flat and boring compared to the previous mountain scenery!! The bus driver was a bit of an arse as he was meant to drop us at the antartic centre on the way but he couldn"t be bothered so we missed out (I filled in a customer questionaire making sure I mentioned the lovely Colin!!).

We had a bit of an upset when we arrived as my precious flip flop broke - so i had a bit of a paddy, Charlie coped well and said all the right things though! The afternoon was spent exploring, all the street had english names like Worcester street and Gloucester street etc. The hostel we stayed at was called Charlie B's so we were spoilt with aptly named places!! I did manage to get some flip flops but not the ones I wanted. We did also manage to secure tickets to the super 14 rugby match which Charlie was very keen to see. That evening we headed out for a meal with Jon and another lady off our bus - a nice older guy travelling alone (the women was harder work though as seemed to have very limited English - we couldn't figure out whether she was having us on though!!?). Went for a curry which was lovely, I don't get to eat out that often and it is not easy to cook good food in the hostels here as they are so busy).

The following morning we set off very early in a hire car to head to Akaroa - the place where you could swim with dolphins. It didn't get off to the best start when we headed the wrong way up a one way street (which was 4 lanes wide!!) - not really my fault of course; if they'd sorted out the road markings I would have been fine!! After that I settled in to the driving, it is very pleasant due to the lack of traffic they have on their roads. We arrived for our Dolphin swim bang on time in the lovely little harbour town of Akoroa.

We headed out in the boats and within minutes spotted the Hector dolphin (the smallest and rarist dolphin in the world). However, they don't let you swim with them unless they show an interest in you - and the b*****s kept having a little look and b*****ing off!! Eventually we got in with a group of dolphins that the other boat had been playing with - they swam between us and got pretty close but didn't play as such. To my suprise they offered us a part refund due to the lack of play (I thought they'd just got us in the water to avoid having to do such a thing!!). So it was a win win situation, we got to see the Dolphins up close but we also got some money back so we could buy some nice fish and chips for lunch!! We spent some time poodling around here then headed back stopping at a cheese place on the way.

We got back to the hostel and had wine with biscuits and cheese (they do a lovely creamy blue here) with some merlot jelly - very refined I think. Then we headed out and caught the free bus to the rugby. I was a bit suprised it wasn't sold out, there were cheer leaders on Harleys and everything; me and Charlie thought we could probably do better though! The players came up for autographs at the end but I didn't hand mine out. A quick drinkie on the way home and early to bed as Charlie headed out at 6am in the morning. For me it was the bus to Kaikora (all by myself!!).