Picked the car up Tuesday morning (it's ok considering 400,000 k on the clock), had a look around Christchurch and a lot of the centre was flattened in the earthquake a few years ago and although they're rebuilding a lot are just empty shells or level sites waiting to start construction, but still a few nice buildings that survived were worth a look. That afternoon we drove to Kaikoura not easy because the main route A1was closed bacause of the earthquake in Kaikoura 7 weeks ago so we had to drive into the mountains, the long route which was like driving in a rally as a lot of the road in various places were badly damaged (I thought it was fun!!) Kaikoura is in a beautifully scenic area, mountains behind a lovely Bay (the mountains are still growing because of the fault line). Wednesday went snorkelling with wild Dolphins, there must of been 100 of them it was amazing, but knackering. Today we were supposed to go on a whale watching trip, got there 06:15 cancelled, bad weather 08:15 & 10:15 still no go, so had a stunning 10.5 mile walk out to the Peninsula and although windy it was very sunny, hot but saw lots of seals and their pups close up, the sea bed lifted over 7 feet with the earthquake so plenty of rocks are now walkable. John & Gail