Left Greymouth on Sunday as planned, it was again raining. We drove across Author's Pass but as the weather was not good we could not see all of the mountain ranges, which are supposed to be stunning, so we may cross this pass again on our way back up.

We finally stopped at a small coastal town called Akoroa, on the Banks Peninsula, about 1 hour south of Christchurch. The weather here was sunny, hot and no rain. We stayed here a few days just enjoying the sunshine and walking along the coastal path.

Leaving Akoroa on Tuesday we headed for Christchurch. The effect of the earthquake is evident everywhere around Christchurch, the whole centre of the city has been cordoned off (the red zone) and all the buildings there are going to be demolished, the worst of which have already been taken down, others look ok for the outside but must be structurally unsafe. Outside of the red zone you walk down a street and there will be from one to a row of buildings cordoned off that will also be demolished, and there is just empty spaces where some have already been removed.

We are going to stay in Christchurch for 2 nights and have booked into a hostel that used to be a prison; our room is a set of bunk beds in an old cell. I think it's really good, they make the most of the prison thing, just about everything is black and white stripped and all the staff have orange jailhouse t-shirts on. We have been to the Canterbury Museum today which was quite good, the best bit was a big Rugby photographic exhibition there with a short video from the photographer explaining the pictures.

The arm snapped off of Dai's $6 sunglasses and they wouldn't stay on with just one arm so he snapped the other arm off then tied some elastic he had from the canoe trip, and was going to where them like that until I refused to go anyway with him with sunglasses stuck to his face and a tight elastic around his head, so he took them off and borrowed mine. His next pair of sunglasses will be his 5th pair since we started this trip in October.

I am hoping to experience a small earthquake while here as apparently they are still having small ones daily, Dai says we probably be killed in the night when the concrete ceiling of our cell collapses on us, so he's put me on the top bunk. The weather is still hot and sunny and should we survive the night we are planning to go to the Botanical Gardens and some nearby park tomorrow.