The Container Mall

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I got up this morning and called up Apex rental cars to discuss a hire. They gave me a deal which included ferry crossing from Picton to Wellington. I therefore decided that I would do the following route Queenstown-Greymouth-Chch so I could be back for Sunday and then get the ferry from Picton, around 4 hours away from Chch.

I planned to leave in the afternoon and would pick up the car at 3pm before going part way south. Therefore we went to Anita's work to say goodbye and tell her my plans before taking a visit downtown. There is not much at all left of downtown Christchurch and what is left is barred off from public access with machinery working all day. It is a harrowing site and the inner city looks like something from a post-apocolyptic film!

However just next to this devastation is an ingenious mall built out of containers! They have taken various containers, painted them, cut out sides for windows and stacked them on top of eachother. There is another Coffee Culture here where we ran into another one of Naomi's friends who works at a nearby shop. After grabbing a drink and a snack we went to the shop she works out. This place was far too cool and edgy for me!! It sold weird pipes, various legal highs and rings which I had no idea of where they went!!

As I woudl be hopefully going skiing in Queenstown and if not it would be bloody cold i went and bought some thermals and a merino wool hoody that would keep me nice and cosy! We then went to the car hire centre. To get there you have to drive past the ATM stadium, a huge rugby stadium that had just been renovated for the World Cup when the Feb shoke happened last year! It now stands silent and empty as the foundations have been destroyed. It is set for demolition and matches are now played at an old rugby league that is soo small that the ticket sales mean that a loss is made!

I picked up my car and headed back to the Darvills to grab my stuff. By this time it was 4pm so I made the decision to leave very early wednesday morning and do the journey in one day. This worked out a lot better as I managed to get hold of Ron in Queenstown and find out the hostel where he and Benny were living. I planned my route and went to bed at 9.30pm ready to get up at 6am!

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