Christchurch, NZ

We arrived in New Zealand a few days ago and the trip over went much more easily than anticipated. We have been staying in Christchurch with our new lovely friend Anne, who has spoiled us at her home for the last few days. She has helped us find a great rental car (nicknamed Edna so we can try to remember the license plate number when looking for her in a parking lot!) and figure out a reasonable path to travel around the country.

On day 2 (after a 12+ night's sleep in what must be the world's most comfortable bed) we went into Christchurch for the afternoon to wander around. While you can still see all the prettiness of the city is still there, the devastation from the earthquakes is incredible. Although many buildings are still standing in the city centre, most have been condemned and will be demolished in the near future. It's astonishing the scale and amount of damage that has been done by the disaster. It will be years and years and years before the city recovers.

But, Christchurch is ticking onward and has opened a small container shopping district in the heart of the destruction- with temporary shops set up in reused shipping containers! The whole "mall" has a bunch of really funky shops and booming with lots of people shopping when we were there. Then we wandered down to the botanical gardens (the Moms would have loved it!) and onto Hagley Park, where "Christmas in the Park" celebrations were going on. It was so wierd to hear Christmas carols while sitting on the grass in shorts and sunshine (although it was definitely nippy enough that when the sun went down, most locals pulled out their parkas and toques).

The next day, we both passed our NZ driving test (which consisted of showing the rental agent a credit card and two driver's licenses) and got the keys to our newest touring partner, Edna (well-seasoned Nissan Pulsar) and headed for the seaside town of Akaroa for the day. Keeping in mind that driving happens on the left side of the road here (opposite to us in Canada), the drive was a bit of an adventure :) We took turns driving for practice and we should be fine from here on after successfully navigating the windy, mountainous road to and form Akaroa. Aside from the passenger having to yell out, "stay left" and "move off the shoulder" a few times, we managed to make it back to Christchurch in one piece. Akaroa was beautiful and sunny- we walked around the many tourist shops, had a picnic by the bay and just chilled out by the beach.

Today we'll say goodbye to Anne and head down the coast for Mount Cook, in hopes of spending a few days hiking in the mountain. At this point, we have a rough idea of where we want to go, but this can change on a whim. That's the beauty of road trips :)