Farewell New Zealand

Our final night in Queenstown turned out to be a very lively one as we spent it with the people from our bus who were staying on in Queenstown for longer. We ended up getting back to the hostel in the early hours of the morning, only to have to wake up at 6:30am to catch the bus to Christchurch in time.

On the way to Christchurch, we made a number of regular scenic stops to appreciate for one last journey, the beautiful views of New Zealand. We arrived in Christchurch later that afternoon and after settling into our hostel we went out to explore the city and pick up some food.

It's been regularly mentioned, but I feel I need to say it once more. Christchurch received an earthquake measuring 7.4, 3-weeks prior to us arriving. I was hoping to be able to volunteer some of my time to helping with the clean-up and repair of the city. However, I was astonished at just how undamaged the city seemed. Yes, there were a few construction sites, but you wouldn't have thought this city had been hit by a huge earthquake. The earthquake that hit Haiti measured 7.0 and caused utter devastation. It's incredible to see first hand the difference that a developed infrastructure makes.

The next day, we visited The Canterbury Museum, which was similar in many ways to Te Papa (Wellington) and the Auckland museums, with regards to the exhibitions that were on offer. After having a fun wonder, we headed for lunch and got a few essentials done that afternoon. The city centre had a nice market set up, so I enjoyed walking around that, looking for interesting gifts to bring home.

My flight out of Christchurch was at 7am the next morning. Since I would need to be getting up at 3am in order to get to the airport on time, I decided to save the money and sleep in the airport instead of spending an extra night at the hostel. I therefore, packed up my stuff and took a bus late that night. I got to the airport and found a nice little spot to nap for a few hours. My backpack was my pillow and I laid, cradling my rucksack to make sure no one mugged me while I was asleep.

The flight was pretty easy and I had a lot of time to kill at Sydney airport while I waited for Andy to arrive on his Quantas flight. I spent this time watching movies on my laptop and playing solitaire. We then hopped into a shuttle bus and made our way to Cazz's appartment. Cazz is a Loughborough Uni girl, who's completing a placement year working for the Australian Institute of Sport and has kindly let us crash at her place for the week.

So as we mark the end of our New Zealand adventures, we can look forward to our upcoming Australian adventures. My one regret from New Zealand was not being able to visit the Milford Sounds while in Queenstown. I suppose this means I'll have to visit Milford in some other capacity but whether that's Milford Sounds or Milford Pennsylvania, I'm not sure!

The plans for tonight are to go out into the city and meet up with a couple of the lads from the kiwi bus who flew out here a few days ago.

Much love!

Sam