Touring Monocle

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Dogsitting now in Lincoln just outside of Christchurch. Interesting as the English bulldog has a tendency to sulk then hide in the garden. The mastif reminds me of scooby doo.

Yesterday drove over to Akaroa about an hour away. Gorgeous little place, very French..the drive was very precarious going over the tops, at times 25kmh round the bends. But the views were tremendous. Went into the lighthouse, this was dismantled from the heads and transported to Akaora, there is a windup mechanism to turn the light around 360 degree. Quite fascinating. Then jumped on a sailing boat for a couple of hours. This boat was built for the Americas Cup in 1946, and its class won 4 of the 6 races entered. The skipper allowed us to steer and captain the boat. Managed to spot a lot of dolphins that came along the boat, and blue penguins. Scenery was very dramatic. The bay was formed by a volcanic explosion that breached the land mass to the Pacific Ocean to form Akaroa bay, which in the 2nd world war became a secret submarine base. Walking back to the car, the skipper had recommended that we had a fresh Akaora salmon toasted bbq ciabatta butty. To die for, was really nice.

Driving back there is a place called Little River, and you can stay in converted silo containers. Got to try that.

Today there was a local fruit/berry market at Lincoln, with local guitar musicians, very quaint. Then caught the bus to Christchurch 40 minutes, 5 dollars return. The earthquake happened 5 years ago and you can see that a lot of rebuilding has been done, but there is a hell of a lot more to do. 80 percent of Christchurch houses got damaged or destroyed. In the centre most of the shops are old shipping containers, and this works. This is so unique. You can't describe the devastation that is still apparent, shipping containers are propping up destroyed buildings. The cathedral is utterly knackered and they still haven't made up their minds whether to save it.

It was very poignant walking round this city, but now you can potentially see what it will be like in the future, though it's slowly being resurected.

Whilst here in the Christchurch area plan to go to Sunmer where most of the devastation happened, and they have only now just started to rebuild the road from their to Lyttelton.

Weather windy, sunny, cloudy and some times a cool wind that blasts up from the South Pole. Still in shorts.

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