Christchurch

Sleeping in a normal bed for the first time in 6 weeks was heavenly. For once we didn't wake up with sore hips and shoulders. We also woke up to a continental breakfast laid out on the table of muesli, cornflakes and toast, a much welcomed change to porridge. Our Airbnb hosts, Chris and Andrew, were kind enough to let us leave our bags at there house as our flight to Melbourne wasn't until 9pm. This gave us another full day to explore the last bits of Christchurch that we didn't manage to do on our last visit. We hopped on the bus and made our way to the botanical gardens as we knew our way to a few stops from there.

Our first stop was the Art Gallery again as we only managed to see one exhibition last time. It just so happened that we managed to get there 10 minutes before 'Blade' from the Len Lye section would come to life. It only comes to life once a day and we had missed it on our last visit so we went to watch that first. We then wandered around the next floor until we'd had enough and were on our way. When we last visited Re:start we had discovered lots of food stalls which looked and smelt amazing so we headed there for lunch. There was lots to choose from but I went for a spicy lamb souvlaki from the Lebanese truck and Blake went for a falafel platter.

Once lunch was done we went in search of the dance mat and giant arcade game. Since the 2011 earthquake, a creative urban regeneration initiative called Gap Filler has been putting up creative projects in the vacant sites around the city. The dance mat and arcade game were two of these initiatives. Unfortunately when we got the dance matt it was out of order but Blake had a token boogie anyway. The giant arcade game was space invaders which has a giant screen on the side of a building and a giant joystick on a controller on the opposite side of the road. The controller only went right for some reason but after some nifty footwork I managed level one before being killed. We were all mooched out by that point so we headed back to the bus stop. After collecting our bags from the Airbnb, we made our way to the airport. This was the end of our 7 weeks in New Zealand and the beginning of Australia, our new home for 4 months.

After a 4 hour flight, we landed in Melbourne where we made it through customs in record time (a term almost never heard of when passing through Australian customs). Blake's friend Maddy was kind enough to pick us up and has offered us a base for the next two weeks!Read more