March 19 - 21

After 23 hostels, 10 buses, 5 states, 4 timezones, 4 planes, 3 campsites, 2 rental cars, a boat, tropical cyclones, floods and bush fires and bidding farewell to the parents following our week of being spoiled rotten in Sydney we arrived in Christchurch and picked up our bright green Jucy Condo which would be home for the next 6 weeks. We checked into a campsite near the airport and made our way into town to stock up on supplies, not before getting lost twenty times and realising that we really didn't have our bearings at all!

The usual grid system of the city was hampered by the fact that a number of roads had been closed by the earthquake so we'd turn down a street, going in the right direction only to find that we had to turn around and go back because we were faced with a blockade guarded by either police or army, you can't argue with either! The first night in the camper was always going to be a bit strange, but we made it a little easier on ourselves by filling our faces with fajitas and wine.

The itinerary for the second day involved buying some more appropriate clothing (Hong Kong aside, we hadn't experienced temperatures below 20 degrees in about 4 months) and a booster aerial for the camper TV. This meant a trip to a mall and some browsing around gadget shops which is always a good way to kill a couple of hours.

After lunch we made our way into the centre of the city on foot. The devastating earthquake of 22nd February has left the centre of the city largely in ruins. Some roads are impassable due to debris, others because of the danger that any of the brick buildings along it could collapse at any time. The area around the Cathedral, usually a tourist hotspot renowned for its 'English' architecture, is a no-go zone guarded by army and police. Huge cracks have opened up in the ground and the city feels like a ghost town with buildings left exactly as they were when they were evacuated. Bright green or purple circles are spray-painted on the fronts of most structures, left there by the emergency search and rescue teams to inform which had been searched and what damage was found.

It was a very strange experience and we were conscious to not seem too much like insensitive tourists as we took in the sights. We joined a crowd that had gathered around an old brick office building as it was being demolished by a wrecking ball and crane and the atmosphere was very sombre.

We wandered back to the camper through the Botanical Gardens where the car park has been turned into a makeshift car impound for all the vehicles that have been removed from the city. Later that night we were sitting in the camper watching tv as the whole vehicle started to shake, our first instincts being that it was a strong wind or someone tipping the van, only after a few seconds did we both remember where we were and realise that we had just felt an earthquake. We heard on the news the next day that it was a magnitude 5.1, the strongest since the infamous one in February.