Well- we have had a very eventful and dramatic start to our time in New Zealand by the time my mother reads this she will be having a fit I think :-).

I will start at the beginning and cover the drama as and when I get to it!!

We arrived in Christchurch late on Thurs and went straight to our hotel. Wow what a hotel - was in the Old government buidings which funnily enough used to house the science labs!!! We had two rooms booked and ended up with two suites - complete with upstairs bedrooms, kitchens, washing machines and dryers etc etc - fantastic!!!

Friday we headed out into the city - it is very small compared the metropoli of Sydney and Melbourne!! There is much evidence of Septembers earthquake with scaffold and ties everywhere. I cant honestly say it is a beautiful city but the cathedral square is lovely. We had lunch at a fantastic vegetarian restaurant - run by followers of sri chimoy ( if that means anything to anyone?!). We then headed out to the botanical gardens which are very beautiful. Stunning flower displays and loads of other bits to see - was lovely sunny afternoon too so that helped!!

Friday evening we decided to go out for food and got distracted by the ice bar!!! Fantastic!!! 20 tons of ice shipped in from the states and carved by the guy who did the ice hotel. Was very funky. Boys absloutely loved it - sat in there drinking their mocktails!!! Obviously ours had a little more vodka in!

Dinner in an Irish bar and then bed.

Saturday were had a quick mooch around the city again and then picked up STinky Bus II. Pretty much the same as stinky bus I but slightly better in some ways - a little less falling apart anyway!

Quick shop - relieved to fine beer and wine in the supermarkets again and really relieved to find New Zealand soooo much cheaper than Australia. Good job really! Iceberg lettuce - 25p better than the £3 in oz!

We decided to travel out to Akaroa which is French-style town around 85km out of Christchurch. Just wanted short drive on first night - sadly due to mountainous climbs with hairpin bends in 7m long bus - it took around 2 hours. Was worth it though - we literally climbed over last hill to look out onto the most beautiful vista - turquoise waters against huge dark brooding mountain backdrop.

Lovely campsite on hill just above Akaroa. so we parked and then decided to walk down to the town. And thus disaster struck! Sam decided to race down gravel path and couldnt stop and collided pretty much face-first with a solid metal bollard. Sadly he came off worse.

Blood everywhere, and teeth!. He had knocked his big front tooth clean out - fortunately I found that one. As for his other we are still not completely sure if he knocked them out or just back into the gums. Obviously cut and bruised all his lips etc and actually manged to damage and push back some of his other teeth too. All pretty gruesome poor little man. Jase ran into town to try and find where the doctors was and some lovely kind man offered to drive us up to the hospital. Fortunately the doc was there - not that she could do much other than liaise with the emergency dentist in Christchurch. Who told us to put tooth back in and get him to Christchurch - as this was going to be two hour plus drive in van the lovely lovely doc lent jase her car to take Sam in!! Can you imagine that happening in UK?!

So off they went for Sam to be stitched and braced. He was very very brave. So then came saga of getting to dsentist on Sunday to get it checked who basically said we need to get paediatric dentist to look at it.

The long and the short of it was another night in Christchurch followed by us heading up to Whalewatching in Kaikoura yesterday. Beautiful sunny day yesterday - hot even! Got up to Kaikoura lunchtime ish but couldnt get straight onto whalewatch. So booked for 645am this morning and had wander around town.

Beautiful surroundings again - azure sea against the mountains. Grey pebbly beach with huge crashing waves and the sea was very cold!! Not used to that!

So we duly set alarm for 530 am and really wish we hadnt!!! The whalewatch trip was completly unsuccessful as the sea was way to rough. All of us bar Sam were sick (he was only one to have tablet as he usually the only one to be sick!!). But it was bad conditions and the following trips this morning were cancelled. Think in hindsight may all have been connected to earthquake as rough seas not forecast at all. So that was realy shame as we were hoping to see spermwhale but we got most of money back and hopefully there may be somewhere else along the way to try again.

Anyway once back on dry land we headed west to Hanmer Springs up on the foothills of the Southern Alps. Very beautiful drive with very dramatic vistas and some more hairy driving. ( have to confess Jase doing v well!!). It is all quite scorched at the moment and more like I imagined Australia would look (and normally does this time of year). BUt a real ruged beauty.

Found lovely campsite with nature reserve at the back and just sat having lunch when stinky bus started rocking of its own accord and all felt a bit weird. Didnt think much of it and it happened again and then the guy near us asked if we had felt earthquake and said it was quite a big one. Of course a little while later we heard the news that Christchurch had suffered another massive earthquake. 6.3 richter but shallow - near the surface and close to city centre- all of which has led to massive damage and destruction and unconfirmed deaths in the city centre. News pictures coming through are awful. Terrible terrible damage - even the cathedral has half collapsed - all happening where we staying. Is just unreal and very very sad for all the people of the city - just devastating so soon after the last one.

Natural disaster seems to be following us :-(. So we not quite sure of our next moves now - supposed to be at dentist in Christchurch on Thurs but not sure if that will happen or not. Hopefully will find out more tomorrow. For the moment we are just sitting tight (and rocking with the aftershocks). Just relieved we out of the city but feel so sorry for all those affected.

Thanks everyone for the messages and comments on here - really enjoy reading them.

To class one - Sam says hi and can we do natural disasters for a project when he returns!!!