Christchurch was a sad town to walk around, repairs from the earthquake are still progressing but many buildings and areas are still in ruins and fenced off. The Cathedral and the square surrounding it were restricted but one could tell that it was once a beautiful building but now like much of the town a victim of the devastation. There is a new shopping area called "Fresh Start" which is essentially constructed from ocean containers, painted brightly and housing several outlets - This underlines spirit in the city and there is a confidence that it will emerge bigger and better than ever and with a stricter building code that will ensure they are more earthquake resistant and robust, like the third little piggy.

The time had come to plan our escape, we had given a geezer some money to borrow his twelve year old Nissan Sunny and had it parked just outside the Jailhouse. Early in the morning during the exercise break, we took our chance, fired up the Nissan and with the smell of burning rubber in the air left Christchurch behind us.

Our first stop along the way was a small quiet town called Akaroa, which is on the Banks Peninsula on the east coast. It is an old French colony hidden away within an old volcano, which suited our needs well. A man on the dockside, who went by the name of Captain Hector offered us the use of his ocean going kayaks in exchange for coin of the realm. We accepted his offer and fully equipped, we launched into the ocean. This proved to be hard work but we were rewarded by a pair of playful rare Hector dolphins who swam alongside our kayak and even turned a few summersaults for us - Brilliant. The Dolphins highly intelligent as they are and masters of their own environment, seemed to be communicating with us telepathically - The message was that that an ocean escape wasn't really going to work for us and they should know, so we returned to the harbour and the Captain accepted his vessel back.