Christchurch

Today we went to Christchurch City. It is a bit if an odd place really, still very much in its recovery from the earthquakes and so quite a disjointed place.
We checked out the start up mall which is made up of shipping containers brought in to help those who had lost their premises. It's colourful and vibrant, lots of fantastic smelling street food and some quirky shops too.
We had a delicious bratwurst hit dog listening to a really good acoustic guitar busker before wandering to see the Cathedral Square.
It was really sad to see the Cathedral in bits. So much of it is now rubble and what is left is being held up with great big bits of steel. You can only really view it through metal raikings or by looking above a big border around the edge to stop people entering. Personally I think it is quite a sad living reminder of what happened here and as much as it is quite shocking to see ad a tourist, I'm not sure as a resident I would want to keep seeing it like this as it is quite sad. Perhaps a safer and stronger rebuild that incorporates parts of the old building would be good?

I think to be honest that we are a bit disenchanted when it comes to cities now. Wildlife and the outdoors is what we love and so without any money to really enjoy city life, such as eating out, visiting certain attractions and such like, we find it hard to love them.

We plan on visiting quake city to hear more on the earthquake and it's impact, but aside from this we are more concerned with selling the car.

We are at another free camp tonight by a lake. Much nicer than the other one, quieter and with a lovely view and sunset. Got chatting to a woman called Helen who has just started her journey so was able to share some advice. She is from Malton near York so not too far away from me. She starter talking to us when we apparently made her laugh with our little comedy show. It was probably a had to be there moment but Rob was being all high and mighty about how I should open the rice box so as to be able to reseal it. Of course that would mean that when shaken *Rob shakes box* nothing will......*rice bags all over the floor* haha! 😂 funnily enough we never actually shake rice anyway so I think my methods worked just fine thank you! Anyhow this amused Helen quite a bit and was a good excuse to start chatting.

Now we just watched the international space station whizz by and caught a other couple of shooting stars too. Bed time now I think.Read more