escape from Christchurch

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So we now had our car back and everything was packed up and thrown in the back seat. We headed off northwards hoping the train of destruction would be less.
We where right to imagine that the cordon would be a little more organised as more and more roads where shut off as we tried to flee the disaster, the biggest problem seemed to be that roads where closed off randomly, with no direct detour set up. Some of the roads that where open where in worse condition than the roads that where closed.
People where beginning to loose there temper with other folk, the city seemed to be going into meltdown.
However some community spirit existed as some houses we passed had access to spring water and had signs outside, with the offer of free water, but there was also other signs half blocking the road stating "slow the fuck down, that means you dick!" We also heard a story that on the day of the quake a taxi driver tried to charge somebody $170 to drive him down from the gondolas to the bottom of the hill.

After hours of driving round and round and our fuel was getting a little low we where almost at our destination when Ilona clipped a raised curb on a damaged bridge.
Clipped is a little bit of an under statement as the car was actually going along on two wheels for about 20 metres, finally when it landed back on four wheels there was an almighty bang, we had managed to bend the wheel, burst the tyre, bend the suspension arm and rip out the drive shaft from the gearbox......we could not believe our luck, cats life number 8 gone. If we had been slightly more to the left we would have flipped over into the river.

We where now blocking the main bridge North out of the city limits, with a non functioning car, no water or food. A guy quickly pulled up and offered to tow us, we could only go as far as clearing the bridge as the drive shaft threatened to smash the gear box to pieces.
We where now in the shit, we looked underneath and figured out that if we could borrow a few spanners and a press from the garage at the bottom of the hill, we could probably pop the drive shaft back in and limp the car to the airport. I walked to the garage and i was very surprised that they where so unwilling to help "oh,i do not want to get involved with that" he stated and went back to sitting around doing nothing......

we called the hire car company, knowing the damage was going to cost us a fair amount of money but the main priority was getting out of this area. After being diverted all over NZ by the call centres, whilst having the phone bleeping with a flat battery, and trying to give directions of mauri street names, finally a guy from the airport branch, took up his own initiative, and came out and picked us up. repair bill was a very rough estimate of $600, which we paid.

Once in the airport, we rearranged our tickets so we could fly out 3 days earlier than expected, we where billed for this even in our time of need a grand total of $400. This is coupled with the fact that we also had the grand plaza hotel booked in Christchurch city, for the up and coming few days, we have no idea how to get our money back as the hotel is damaged beyond repair. We hope our insurance will cover this and some of the things we lost in the store during the earthquake.

So once we where in the airport with everything rearranged we just had to sleep somewhere, there was water and electric, and food.
We where exhausted, had lost a few things including my camera. We had not eaten, showered, or slept well for 4 days. Our flight was at 7am so we waited.

Finally we where in the air and a flight time of 3.5 hours we began to think about the last few days, but little did we know it was still not over.
The plane started to make its descent through thick fog towards Melbourne airport, suddenly the pilot hit the throttle hard on the plane, everything was shaking as we began to climb steeply up, having been only metres from the runway we aborted our landing, the pilot quickly notified us that there was a plane taxing on the runway in our direct flight path. Eventually we landed safely, after all we had been through and finally thinking we where safe, we almost ended up another aviation statistic. Cats life number 7 gone.................

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