Aotearoa!!

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I landed in Christchurch at around 1am, later than it should have been!! After clearing customs I met Mark Darvill and his daughter Charlotte who I would be staying with. Naomi, his other daughter, had decided to go out and get drunk instead of meeting her old friend!! On the way to there house Mark pointed out some of the devastation around Christchurch since the massive earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. It is ridiculous and this was only the tip of the iceberg as I would see later in the week.

Their neighbourhood experienced some of the worst damage and in an area of 25 houses only 4 are still inhabited. From the outside the Darvill abode seemed to be unscathed but inside the signs of the Feb shock are clear to see. The majority of the plasterboard is cracked (especially in my room where a partioning wall fell down!) and the windows have moved so that there is actually gaps to the outside. The only reason the house stood the shocks is that it is wooden framed and has earthquake struts.

I had some toast (YES finally real bread!!) and crashed out at 3am. I finally crawled out of my hibernation at 1.30pm, probably in my top 3 of lie ins! Today in Christchurch the weather was miserable.....rain, rain and more rain. Therefore it was a perfect day to chill out and do nothing with the promise of a roast dinner that evening.

Mark sorted me out with a new NZ sim card to go in my trusty AMTEC that I had purchased in HK, it even came with $15 free credit! Using this i sent my good old friend Jase Chin a text to see if we could meet up for a beer that evening. I had stayed with Jase in Wellington 4 years ago but now he was at medical school in ChCh. I went out with Mark to the shops and saw in the light the destruction in the area. He took me around coast to Sumner where they have shipping containers stacked up around the base of the cliff to protect from landslides. This area has more abandoned houses, a few half lost over the edge of the cliff! Mark told me about how the buildings all around ChCh had got away with only being built to 30% of the building code and therefore had no chance, there is currently an investigation after many people died when two huge multisorey builidings downtown collapsed.

That evening I feasted on roast beef AND roast lamb cooked by Anita! It was delightful after 4 weeks of Chinese food! Jase then came by to pick me up and we went to a pub in Sumner. Here I had my first ale in a long long time and it was another heavenly treat!! We had a great catch up which ended up in him brining up my sin bin at our previous meeting and then us discussing rugby socials and "welcoming drinks". Jase had to head off as he had work in the morning so I spent the rest of the night reaquainting myself with my dear friend television!

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