All good things have to come to an end so we left Blenhein and the vineyards to travel to Hanmer Springs. A stunning drive to a town famous for its hot springs resort. But also some wonderful walks in the clear mountain air. You can bike or bungee jump or anything else ridiculous if you want but for us it was a long walk followed by 2-3 hours in the springs. Just so happened to be a bar afterwards for a beer. Great accomodation again in a motor lodge but five star rooms with self catering if you wanted.

Then we moved to Christchurch for one night, we had to rearrange because of the quake and stayed on the outskirts in a golf resort which was near the airport. As we drove in you could see some poor peoples houses with chimneys down and roads affected as well as liquefaction in the feilds and gardens. This is a major problem where the earth becomes liquid durong the quake and the resulting silt just flows up and then drains out. Some people have 9 inches deep over their gardens and it has to be dug out by hand.

Linda said she felt the bed move at 2.30am! there was an aftershock reported the following morning, Ian didn't feel a thing!

We then caught the train to travel across the island to Greymouth on the West Coast. A very scenic alpine journey and we are ataying in a B&B that looks out over a wide beach. Only one night here before we move on to the glacier regions. I will upload more photos.