Friday the 13th :-(

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We had an amazing drive from Marlborough to Kaikoura on Thursday - the road follows the coast most of the way and it had snowed overnight in the mountains so we had the coast on our left and snow capped mountains on our right.

We arrived in Kaikoura and booked a dolphin trip for 8.30am the following morning and then checked into a place which had cabins at very reasonable rates. The weather up to this point had been fantastic but typically as soon as we book a boat trip the rain clouds open and the gales start so the trip got canceled which was a big disappointment and heralded the beginning of Friday 13th which was not a good day for us!

We made a decision not to wait to see if the lunch time trip was going ahead as we thought we should get down to Christchurch as we wanted to do a walk at Arthurs Pass (2 hours car trip from Christchurch) on Sat before Emma's flight in the evening.

Christchurch is not a city we'd recommend... it's like the worst of English cities without the benefits. We spent about 10 hours trying to get parked, following the endless one-way system. Matt was driving and we experienced our first bought of road rage in NZ. We then spent about 3 days looking for a motel and ended up in Sumner which is a sort of village outside of Christchurch and is very nice. We managed to get a room in the second place we tried and it turned out to be a very nice hotel run by very nice people. We had a nice meal in a bistro as it was Emma's last night here, but then Emma developed a bad headache and was in pain all night.

In the morning we went to an emergency doctors in Christchurch. It was very good, we only waited about 30 mins and then a nurse checked Emma and moved us into a private room to wait for the doctor. The doctor came about 20 mins later and eventually decided it was just a bad migraine so she gave her an injection and some pills and we went back to the hotel. Luckily we could stay at the hotel another night so Emma headed to bed to try and sleep it off.

The doctor wrote Emma a medical note to say that she couldn't fly today but we're hoping she'll be ok by this evening.

Stop the press - Em has checked in and is about to board...

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Photos

Double decker bridge (rail line on top)
Road is made up of wooden planks!