We landed safe and sound in Christchurch and Emma was waiting at the airport to collect us she made us a welcome back sign and yet we still managed to walk right past her at the airport!!!

We were in New Zealand for two weeks and spent our time getting to know Christchruch and all it has to offer something we didn't really do on our last visit. Emma gave us our earth quake instructions on arrival so we would know what to do in the event that another one was to occur.

Both of us were amazed by the resilance of the people living in the city given that much of it was destroyed during the earthquake and it was quite shocking seeing the damage. It wasn't long before we had our first aftershock at 3.5 it felt like a large truck going past the house but more on that later.

On our first week we were based in the Papanui suburb and we visited local beaches such as scarbrough, Brighton and waikuku, hiked around a local quarry and found our ideal road 'Glovers Road'.......

Part way through our first week Ross's sister and her husband kindly offered their home to the four of us while they were on their holidays. Their home is in the Cashmere suburb which is in the hills above the city and very close to the epicentre of the earth quake. Only a few days into our stay we had all just gone to bed and their was a really loud rumble the house shook another aftershock at only 3.2 but becuase we were in the hills and much closer to the centre it felt much worse than the one earlier on in the week.

The whole Country was gripped by the Rugby World Cup and the prospect of the Mighty All Blacks bringing home the cup we joined the nation and got in the All Blacks spirit, BBQ, beer and of course New Zealands best produce Tip Top ice cream!! A few days after their win we joined 50,000 Kiwis in Hagley Park to watch the All Blacks parade through the park and display the cup. It was great fun and quite an experience hardly any police pressance, the All Blacks were just on the back of pick up trucks sat on hay bails and it was very relaxedcompletely different to the UK.

Ross was busy during the day learning how to be a primary school teacher so Ben got to spend his days listening to plently of girly talk which was quite an education for him!!

On our final weekend we planned one of our famous Cooper Glover roadtrips, packing Emma and Ross's Honda with food, wine and suncream. We drove out to Banks Peninsular an area we visited last time but we only went to Akaroa which is the main village, this time we explored the smaller inlets and coastal bays including Little Akaloa where Ross and Ben collected New Zealand Green mussels and Abalone, while us girls spent sometime topping up the tans! Before stopping for lunch at Okains Bay. We ended the day trip at Governers Bay at a place called She Chocolate where we spent too much money but not enough time eating and drinking various chocolate drinks and sharing a chocolate tasting platter in honour of Emma turning 30!

Emma and I learnt a new skill and have started knitting! It all started becuase of the oil spill and penguins needing knitted vests to keep them warm. But once we got ourslves organgised we found out they had been inundtated with vests. So we are now making a Peggy blanket (lots of little squares).

The downtime in NZ gave us the opportunity to do some normal everyday life chores like washing clothes but best of all we got to spend some quality time cooking, baked chicken curry, mac and cheese, soup, chorrus con chocolate and Johns famous alcohol triffle.

As is always the case when we spend time with good friends we didn't stop laughing and saying goodbye was much harder than we thought. Ben had to spend five hours on a plane with me sobbing once I started it was like a tap I couldn't turn off, I think the other passengers thought I was a little crazy!!

We will of course miss the Coopers dearly but having spent a fantasitc couple of weeks with them we understand why they have made the move to NZ and despite Emma best attempts at convincing Ben it was a move we should make aswell we know it wont be long before we are all together again. Big Love to the Coopers and thank you for a really special couple of weeks.