Tena koutou!!! (hello in Maori!) - We have arrived in New Zealand!!

Our flight from Melbourne was delayed 3 hours so we finally got in at around 2am local time – we were knackered! We flew through immigration, security and baggage reclaim and out to the shuttle bus waiting at the front door! We must have been in bed 45 minutes after getting off the plane - excellent!

We were a bit nervous of being in Christchurch given all that has gone on here in the past 6 months – we did not want to feel our first earthquake tonight!!! We checked into our room at Foley Towers (which was right beside the ‘red zone’) and were pleasantly surprised – it was big, comfortable and most of all warm – night night!!

Having spoken to the bus driver the night before we quickly found out there wasn’t much to do in Christchurch – the CBD/City Centre was still a “red zone” and was completely sealed off after the earthquake in February and subsequent aftershocks! We had a bite to eat then headed out to the Riccarton area which has become the new temporary city centre! We found a Westfield shopping centre, bought new sim cards for NZ and got food before getting the bus back towards our hostel.

We got off the bus and took a walk into the city centre – as far as the fencing/cordon would allow at least! It was the spookiest thing either of us has ever seen – it really was like we were in the movie “I am Legend”. It was completely deserted, a ghost town! We were walking around a modern city centre at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon and it was silent, no people, no cars, just piles of rubble and abandoned or destroyed buildings! We will put some photos up to show what it is like but it really cannot even come close to what it felt like being there – we can only imagine what the people here went through that day and in the following weeks right up until now! Let’s hope that they get a bit of a break and rebuild this city, their homes and their businesses so they can get back some kind of normality. It looks like this was once a really beautiful place to live, work and visit.

After our walk we grabbed a bite to eat in the hostel following a much needed 4 hour power nap!! We re-packed our bags and went back to bed ahead of starting our stray bus trip to Kaikoura (which means meal of crayfish in Maori) and the start of our tour around New Zealand – the excitement has well and truly kicked in now!

Craig and Laura =)