As we were having breakfast this morning we had another after shock here at Christchurch. Nothing too much just a bit of tremor for a minute or so. It was one week ago today that the quake hit and this city is definitely struggling to recover. There was a nation wide 2 minutes of silence today at the time the quake hit in memory of those who died. We were driving at the time and everyone pulled over on the side of the road as the memorial service was on the radio.'They expect the death toll to be about 240. It seems everyone you talk to want to tell you about how they were involved or impacted. The stores in the area where we stayed were very busy. They had workers from the downtown stores that were destroyed working in these outskirt stores. We had the manager of an electronics store tell is how his store was totally destroyed when the building next to him came crushing down. He said there were 2 tour buses out front that were crushed and he helped get people out. 6 people lost their lives on the buses.
We have moved on out of Christchurch today and began our tour of the South Island. We picked up our GPS for NZ so we should be set. We are in Oamaru tonight which is on the east coast. As we traveled south we saw lots of sheep, and cattle. The rivers that we crossed were an unbelievable turquoise color and crystal clear. Plan to stay here a couple of days to get our plans set and regroup.