Not one, not two, but three highly endangered takahe all in one place!! Actually there were four, but one's hiding round the back of the Ranger's house on Tiritiri Matangi Island. It's a protected reserve for NZ birds, and has a breeding programme for takahe, these endearing flightless beauties with big, serious-looking beaks. We also saw local robins and pigeons, green parakeets, bellbirds, tuis and saddlebacks - heard a kokako but didn't see one. We've had a wo...

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...

I thought it was time to show our tanned and relaxed faces again! And Andy's bushman hat, which he lives and had kept off both sun and rain. Expect to see it on the golf course this summer! Arrived safely on the North Island now, did a quick tour of local beaches and a stroll along the shoreline with our friends here. Caught up on 20 years' gap!

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...