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Published: September 30th 2016
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Well here we are at the bottom of the world embarking on our New Zealand leg of our travels.
The journey was uneventful in that nothing went wrong and Qantas did not object to our luggage or smuggle capsicum (peppers) into my dinner.
We arrived at Christchurch very late and I had booked 2 nights in a boutique B&B that is part of a pub and cafe complex. This gave us 1 full day to explore Chridtchurch and get SIM cards to get the phones working.
Well we walked miles and miles that day.
We saw the cardboard cathedral although it was not open to the public as a funeral service was being held. The cardboard cathedral is an award winning building made mainly but not entirely of cardboard to provide a place of worship after the devastating damage inflicted on the original cathedral by the 2 earthquakes in 2010 and 2011.
We then moved into the town centre and after 5 years and a huge amount of work lots of reconstruction has been done but many buildings including homes are still boarded up, fenced off and in some cases propped up to make them safe. There are also a lot
of empty blocks where building have already been demolished and cleared. It looked like the aftermath of a warzone and will take many more years to recover.
We walked more miles through Hagley Park and eventually found a Vodaphone shop to get sims, then walked back through the botanical gardens and into the historic area by the Council buildings. The gardens were lovely with lots of spring flowers and cherry blossom. The council chambers building is still being repaired but parts are open and huge piles of carefully sorted stonework is in piles to be reattached at some point.
We went to Quake City which is a museum specially commissioned to inform visitors about the earthquakes that affect this region and lots of excellent resources to explain phenomena like liquefaction and sand volcanoes. The earthquake of 2011 was not that high in terms of Richter (6.3) but the devastating damage and loss of life was due to a) coming only 6 months after the last big one and b) it was a very shallow and previously unknown fault that caused exceptional shaking. Up to 80% of the buildings in the town centre were damaged badly or destroyed altogether. Some poor
people last their homes as large areas were Redzoned which means the land can never be built on again as it is unstable due to liquefaction.
So a fruitful and interesting day finished in the pub with dinner and a forlorn look at the whiskey menu - the best I have seen outside Scotland but I did not imbibe as one does lead to another.
Some amusing issues with getting the Kiwi accent- all vowel sounds are mixed up and a TV ad for Massive Decking had me in stitches!!!!
So next day we collected our campervan after paperwork and demonstrations. The van is now called Gnasher from this point due to the Rego number and the gnashing that has happened within.
We left and then within 30 minutes the Gps packed up which involved us determining the fuse had gone and me having to navigate 25 km back to the campervan office using a crap map. As you can imagine Brian was not best pleased!
We got a replacement power cord and set off again towards the Banks Peninsular over a winding road through high country. We eventually found a freedom camping spot right by the sea in Wainui
overlooking Akaroa and got set up. Brian has banged his head countless times but we spent a nice night sleeping in the dry van listening to the ocean and the rain.
We moved on and decided we would need a powered site to top up our battery. We headed off and stopped at Fairlie and spent just enough time faffing about for me to find the supermarket had just closed! So we had mains power and thought all was well and watched DVDs and ate dinner. In the morning our battery situation was not better it was worse!
More faffing about looking at wiring and circuit breakers before I spotted that the power input line to the inverter was not switched on but an empty power point was! Grrrr! So we had not been charging at all!!!! Heaven knows what less tech savvy campers would have done! So we now realised that we would have to pay for a powered pitch again to get the battery charged (our plan is to freedom camp 3 days in 4).
Today we have driven to Mount John observatory and looked at the most astonishing view of turquoise lakes and snowy mountains, just jaw
dropping. We then dropped into the town of Lake Tekapo and has a nice walk before a bad squall came up the valley.
So tonight we are warm, dry and have power and it's lovely.
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