On to NZ

We arrived at Brisbane airport to check-in for the 3 hour flight to Christchurch. However, a slight hiccup meant we couldn't check-in as we only had one-way flights into the country and we needed to have flights out. A bit narked, as we had wanted to keep our plans fairly loose we plucked a date out of the air and decided to buy flights to Sydney. It'll actually be nice as we'll meet up with Sara, my cousin and her husband while we are there.

Anyway, we took the flight and completed our arrival cards. At customs in Christchurch we were questioned a little about our stay. We passed through customs then had to go through 'bio-security' screening. We had to dig our walking shoes out of our packs and a chap kindly cleaned them for us as there could be all sorts of nasties on them that New Zealand just doesn't want.

We finally got through at midnight and were greeted by Ron and Joy (who I keep accidentally referring to as Jon and Roy). We met them on our trip to Thailand in 2006 and got on well with them. (I think spending the night on the floor of a hill tribe hut together helped the bonding process). Anyway, I've kept in touch with them and they offered to put us up for a few days in Christchurch which is so unbelievably kind of them.

We have arranged a hire car to take us around the island, so this will be quite a different experience to our travels around SE Asia. Will update soon!