Eve Bay

So eventually after a few cups of tea we headed back to Justine and James' house. We headed to the camper and tried to get some sleep as we had had so little and felt awful. We have since learnt though that where James and Justine live, the shocks are felt a lot worse than in other places, such as higher in the hills, and so instead we were just sat or laid down whilst the ground kept rocking the car every minute. People were out and about though and we had been reassured that this part at least was normal and the size of these quakes were something more of the norm. It was still unnerving though and took a very long time to get any kind of shut eye.

Eventually we gave up and headed inside after James woke us to say bye on his way to check on his bar. Most stuff had been cleaned up and Justine was a bit calmer now. The poor dog Indie was still not right though. I forgot to mention her in the last post but she is adorable. About the size of a big cat but not yappy and just plain cute. She was terrified the night of the quake and writing this a week later, I have been told she hasn't been right all week with the aftershocks.

We said bye and headed to Dave and Rachel's who had offered us a floor and blow up bed for the night. On route we were still checking Geonet, which monitors all the quakes, and were amazed at the volume of the aftershocks coming through. Hundreds of them! The media always makes out like it's 5 or 6, but nope..... hundreds!

One thing we could take comfort in, being at Dave and Rachel's house, was the fact that they were at least above the tsunami line, so at least we wouldn't need to evacuate again! We ordered some food from Burger Fuel (they make delicious burgers!) and then settled down to watch a daft movie and attempt to calm ourselves. There was another fairly substantial aftershock whilst we were there, which had us all a bit on edge once again, but there isn't much else you can do except get on with it. We also had to ring Tom, our friend in Australia, and let him know that unfortunately we wouldn't making it to the South Island any time soon as not only was our Ferry cancelled for the foreseable future (the docks had been raised in the quake so there was no way of getting on or off the boats now - not great for those already on them!) but also there was horrendous weather battering the islands and therefore the roads were all at risk of more landslips. We really dint want to risk getting stranded between landslips, or worse, caught up in one, so we had decided to stay put. Tom being Tom managed to convince the airline to credit him for the non refundable ticket he had bought after a very long battle on the phones so that was a positive at least.

Eventually we went to sleep after blowing up the air bed. I say we went to sleep - truthfully I slept only a little as there was another couple of aftershocks in the night that woke me up and made me quite anxious once again!

The next day when we were alone in the flat we also felt another one, it actually had me and Rob rush to stand outside of the house it was that bad this time. I certainly won't be sad to stop feeling these quakes!!

Anyhoo, the following day Rachel and Dave informed us that their tenants were moving out of their house that they had been renting (they were excited to finally be getting it back) and said we could stay there until the ferries sorted themselves out. The other two tenants there, who still had a couple of night on the lease, seemed a little bit unsure about us staying but I think after an explanation of the situation were a little more understanding,

And so we stayed for a few days......that turned into a few weeks! This next part is a bit long and boring (except of course for the whole collapsed lung thing), so I will just summarise in the next post!Read more