This might be quite a long blog, but hopefully you will find it interesting…our first 7 days in New Zealand.

Christchurch, it feels so English, the look and feel of the place, the road names, even the River Avon that wends its way through the City, it is also the largest city in the South Island. But, in September 2010 they had a massive earthquake, which did plenty of damage to buildings, but fortunately, maybe because it struck in the early hours of the morning, killed no one. Several aftershocks followed, until 12.51 pm, Tuesday 22nd February, when they were hit by another large quake, not quite as powerful as the first, but with its centre much closer to the City. This was the one that has left extensive, and lasting, damage, and unfortunately also lead to 185 people losing their lives. As a result, much of the underlying infrastructure has required replacement, and more than 1500 buildings have so far been demolished. From what we could see, even just in the city centre, there are still many more that need major rebuilds or demolition… this is a very long “work in progress”. You can only hope they do not experience another major shock in the coming years.

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But there are strong signs of regeneration, with the City clearly realising the challenges it faces. Many new businesses have moved into the new shopping areas built to replace those which collapsed, and the place has an easy going vibe about it. We stayed in the Crowne Plaza, one of only 2 high-rise buildings to remain standing and intact after the February 2011 earthquake.

From there we collected our RV / Campervan / mobile home, and set off on the road… we estimate a trip of more than 3,500 km before we finish in Auckland in 3 weeks time.

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From Te Anau, in the Southern Fiordlands, we drove the Milford Road into Milford Sound, 119 km of the most awe-inspiring road imaginable. Surrounded on all sides by mountains left after the glaciers had carved out the valleys between them, some of these rising more than 2000m in front of us. If we said, Wow, Gosh, Wow, a hundred times we would not be surprised. And then, to get into Milford Sound we needed to go through the Homer Tunnel, hand carved through the centre of a mountain, which opened in 1953. Before then the only want in was a 5 day trek or boat.

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Milford Sound fully lived up to its Premier billing, this is a place which should sit on every travellers checklist, and given it receives more than 500k visitors a year, probably does. However they appear to do a very good job at controlling the impact of so many people, largely coaching them in from Te Anau and Queenstown each day. We spent the morning on a boat, out on the Sound, awe struck by the staggering beauty of the place.

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We had sunny weather for our trip on the Sound, but later in the day the legendary rain started, they receive nearly 9m a year, and it rained all night, and was still going strong when we drove out at 8.30. And here was the most incredible sight, all the waterfalls, across the cliffs there were 100s of waterfalls, some falling 300 – 500m, everywhere we looked there were waterfalls. It reminded Chris of a book read many years ago, The Lost World, by Arthur Conan Doyle… something very prehistoric.

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And the last story to share, the mischievous Kea. This large bird is a rare alpine parrot, green, and with a very large beak. It has a well developed sense of curiosity, and a love for deconstructing cars by removing anything made of rubber. We were lucky, the campervan made it through unscathed, but we did spot them paying close attention to a few vehicles.

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