We finally arrived in CC on Wednesday afternoon, complete with my cookies and polos which I declared when asked about any food and they looked and decided they probably didn't contain any pests. I didn't declare my stolen vegemite from the Holiday inn 3 days previous, just in case I needed a quick fix of vegemite on toast later on.

We got the shuttle straight to our accommodation - Urban Utopia. It's owned by a company called urban rooms who rent out rooms in houses for 4 weeks or more. A lot of chat on the shuttle bus was about the earthquakes and the guy told us that if you were in the car or walking about you were much less likely to feel the tremors than if you were standing still. He also told us that at least working in the hospital during the week was one of the safest places to be!

We opened the front door to our house and looks of immediate disappointment crossed both our faces. It smelt really musty and looked really worn and old. We both tottered through to find our room, which was a good size but absolutely filthy. Dust everywhere. Really old, battered furniture and the ugliest wall hanging I've ever seen. I think it was covering a door or something but to be perfectly honest, I didn't really want to investigate what lay behind it. The kitchen was also pretty old and needed a damn good clean. Only one of the fridges was clean enough to put food in and it was immediately apparent that in order to use any pot or pan, it would need a good wash first. Now i know I'm a student but anyone who has lived with me will tell you that I don't like mess. In particular I hate dirt. Dirty pots and pans do get my back up. Anyway this was on a level I have never witnessed before. Even some cockroach infested hostels in Costa Rica were cleaner than this.

We met our housemate Lu - short for something Italian, not Luigi - who was a contractor working in the city. It seems the earthquake definitely gave his income a massive boost. He offered to drop us off at the hospital, so we could announce our arrival in Christchurch. By this point we kind of thought the hospital would think we were taking the p***, being delayed so much and flooding them with emails about another change to our itinerary.

Driving to the hospital confirmed to us, that a great big block of the city centre was cordoned off and to cross to the other side was one great big mission. The hospital just looked like any other English hospital. Nothing posh or show off like hospitals in some other countries. The department of medicine was closed off because of damage during the February earthquake, so finding the admin offices took some time and when we eventually did, they'd all gone home for the day.

There's a massive park right opposite the hospital, to the side of which is a temporary bus terminal. Getting a bus is a bit like playing lucky dip. All the routes have changed and keep on changing so no one seems to know exactly which bus to get.

We went to the supermarket - pac n save - a cross between a Lidl and a Morrissons. We stocked up on loads of food and maybe a cheeky bottle of wine and then grabbed a taxi back to the house.

After unpacking the shopping we both sat down and realised there was no way we could live in a house like this for another 3.5 weeks. It was a 12 bed house and as well as Lu, the 40 y.o. contractor and Richard, a 22yo surveyor who was nice but had pretty poor chat, there was no one else living there. Well not until more middle aged contractors moved in the following week.

So we set about cleaning our room and looking into new accommodation. I spoke to my dad who also warned me to look into what to do if there was an earthquake. As there was an earthquake only 2 days previous, no matter how large the tremor, it was apparently called a tremor and not an earthquake.

Just as I mentioned this to Tess and we set about looking this up, we felt a pretty big tremor. See earlier blog. Dinner was cereal on Wednesday night because neither of us wanted to cook in that kitchen or had the energy to cook and we went to bed.

2a.m. Tess wakes me up, unable to sleep through fear of another tremor. There had been a few subsequently to the first one felt. We rang the med school and our parents and decided that another 3.5 weeks in Christchurch was utter madness and unless we wanted to spend the next few weeks constantly planning escape routes in an earthquake and judging which table we should duck under if one should hit, we should get out of CC.

So we set about planning another elective. Only we could organise our elective, on our elective. Several emails later and when we got up at 7am after an hour sleep, we already had 2 offers. We called into CC hospital and told them we were leaving - she didn't seem too surprised in all honesty - and by lunchtime we had a new placement in Nelson, a bus up to the top of the south island leaving that afternoon, a ferry over to Wellington for a weekend trip and a bed for the night. RESULT!!

Lu was really sad that we were leaving but did give us a lift to the bus. He took the long, long, long route with our 2 rucksacks, 3 hand luggage bags and 4 massive shopping bags and we got to the bus just in time (we half wondered if he did that on purpose so we'd miss our bus). You have never seen 2 more relieved people at the start of a 5 hour bus journey! Within nanoseconds we were both out for the count.

We spent the night in Picton - a little town where the ferry port is - and cooked a massive batch of chicken fajitas and spag bol to try and reduce some of the food we were carrying with us. We were literally carrying our lives on our back!!

On Friday morning we trekked to the ferry port - normally a 5min walk but with all our excess baggage it took us a good 15minutes.

The ferry over to Wellington was a picturesque 3 hour cruise. They even washed the windows at regular intervals so you could see out. The landscape was a mixture of green rolling hills and jagged mountain edges. Also got a good chance to catch up on some Grey's Anatomy.

So now I'm in a hostel in Wellington and I'll staying in one place for 2 whole nights!! I feel like I'm playing musical beds.

Love xxx