New Zealand

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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 hit.

This is a beautiful city and they are working hard to rebuild. We can see many, many years of work ahead of them. One answer to replacing stores that were destroyed was to create a shopping district made of shipping containers. Very clever !!

New Zealanders seem like very resilient people and this is a very friendly and pleasant place to visit.

Looking forward to a great week in the south Island in New Zealand.

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