Blogs from Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 15

January 28, 2014 New Zealand We arrived late last night from Tahiti. Lost a day with the International Date Line. Left Tahiti on Sunday afternoon, for a 5 ½ hour flight, and arrived in N Z late night Monday. We flew Tuesday morning from Aukland for a day in Christchurch and picked up our car for a week of driving the South Island. ( Maybe we’ll see a Hobbit ?? ) Christchurch was hit by a big earth quake about 3 years ago and they are still tearing down damaged buildings and trying to repair those that are salvageable. This is a huge work in progress. Most of the main downtown was completely off limits and closed for over 6 months while they assessed the structures still standing. Roads, bridges and other infrastructure were also badly ... read more

Only a few more days before we set off on our adventure to Hong Kong, Sydney and New Zealand. We hope to be able to keep in touch with all of our family and friends through this blog site but if not we will revert to e mails when we can. Now Christmas and New Year have passed and a sense of normality has returned, our thoughts are turning to the holiday, getting everything in place, collecting travel money, checking on e tickets and starting to pack suitcases. Five weeks away seems a long time and we will certainly miss the grandchildren but it's the only way to do what we want out there and the chances of going again are slim ......so here we go!!!... read more

Since listening to Christmas carols the entire time I was in the airport on the way here, I have encountered little evidence of Christmas on this trip. It was easy to forget that it is actually December. That being said, I did find it weird to be away from home yesterday, and in summer weather no less. Instead of family, I spent my day in Akaroa with a couple from Australia, an American traveler, a singing bus driver, several dolphins, seals and penguins, and an adorable dog with a life jacket who helped us spot the wildlife. It was definitely a Christmas that I will remember for a long time. Today was equally memorable. I went white water rafting on the Rangitata river, with rapids up to class five - the highest level that is actually ... read more

Wednesday 18th December, 2013. Christchurch - What's Left of It! Today we had planned to go to the Botanical Gardens so it was a relief to see that the sun was shining. We had worked out a route that would continue with the heritage trail we started yesterday, followed by the Botanical Gardens and Christchurch Museum and finishing with most of the rest of the heritage trail. We retraced our steps from yesterday and took some more pictures of the same things - its amazing how much better everything seems when the sun is shining. Once we reached Cathedral Square we went into the Tourist Information Centre and found out where the supermarkets are as we need to do some shopping later. As luck would have it there was about to be a display of Japanese ... read more

We arrived in Christchurch pretty much hassle free apart from Den and I hadn't been checked onto the flight at Heathrow, so got stopped in Dubai as apparently we hadn't got on the flight (clearly we had as we were both stood there in the airport) the flights were fine and after a further 2 stop offs in Bangkok and Sydney, (my bags got searched and Den sent through the body scanner-seems it was just us getting singled out so far....) it was nice to finally get here. As we came into land, Daryl woke up to Den commenting 'It's just like Brecon.....' We got to the airport motel and had a quick shower and change and headed out into town for a look around and something to eat. It was raining quite a bit, but ... read more