Went to bed about 9pm last night in readiness for the day ahead. Shuttle bus was picking us up at 6am and we both woke up just before 5am. It was too early for our free hotel breakfast but instead they gave us a 'breakfast box'. When we got to the airport we had a picnic. We are very high tech now as we both had our boarding passes on our phones which we thought would be replaced at the desk with paper ones but they got us through every checkpoint. The flight wa...

Arrived in Hong Kong tired and crumpled at 6.30am, by the time we got to the hotel it was nearly 8.30. En route the coach driver pulled into a garage and they put in 150litres of diesel without him turning the engine off!! When we arrived it was too early for the room to be ready. They sent us up to the roof so we could use the showers in the fitness area. These were minute with only one shower and nowhere to get dry. Pete was ok but the ladies shower had no hot ...

Funny kind of day really. Bill and Sue leave for Australia at 1pm and we leave for Auckland and Hong Kong at 5pm. As I mentioned before Christchurch has lost its heart so there really isn't much going on. However we had a late breakfast then went across the road to the Botanical Gardens. These Kiwi gardeners know how to grow roses and they don't seem to suffer from any bugs and smell delightful. Yes I know it's nearly Christmas and I am smelling the roses. There ...

Went for a wander around Christchurch today. Not sure what to expect as a friend had told me it was a large building site. He was right, everywhere you went there was derelict buildings some still in the same state they were left in after the 2011 earthquake, others already like Phoenix raising from the ashes, all shiny and new. Our first stop was at the cathedral which lost its steeple. As you can see from the picture it is still a very sad sight. Next we found...

Today we had a 2/3hr drive north to Greymouth where we handed back the car. Again the drive was full of brilliant views sometimes mountainous sometimes coastal. We stopped for coffe at a little one horse town called Ross and the cafe was full of all sorts of old junk, including a few old motorbikes. Next door there was a whole heap of motorbikes in a closed down shop. A bit further on we stopped at Hokitika which was on the coast. It was a centre for Jade carvi...