Sorry the photo's sideways! One of the lovely sculptures dotted throughout the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, leading into a wonderfully scented rose garden. Interesting to walk through tamed nature after so much of the wild stuff! Waiting at the airport now for our flight to the North Island and the next stage in our epic adventure...

This is the so-called cardboard or transitional cathedral, a rare example of something replaced imaginatively and successfully...there seems to be no money to do much other rebuilding yet, though there are cranes and hopeful signs in lots of places. After all, this city is only the size of Woking plus Knaphill and Goldsworth Park - or half the population of Solihull. It's still the biggest city in the South Island! (Correction - it's the size of Coventry, but w...

So here we are back in Christchurch, after actually 8 hours' driving yesterday. Trams are only for tourists, but there are signs of the 2011 earthquake everywhere - most famously in the cathedral behind this tram, where the spire completely collapsed and the beautiful rose window also fell in one of the aftershocks. It's hard to say whether the city is resilient and regenerating, or whether it's stuck in a bit of a time warp and not getting on with demolishing a...