Roadtrip swansong

The final leg of our NZ journey took us up the east coast to Kaikoura. Our original plan was to stop off at Christchurch to split the journey but nature's powers had forced us to can these thoughts. Next time Christchurch, next time. We now had what seemed time-on-our- side. We'd been reading up on the quakes devastation in the press and keeping tuned to local radio. It all sounded a real tragic mess. A sort of situation that you can't really appreciate unless it's directly affecting you. This is the second quake to hit Christchurch,
an area not normally renowned for quakes, within a year. There's talk now from the Earthquake Commission that a whole new fault line has shown up within the Canterbury area. Some Canterbury residential areas
are still in the state of repair from the previous earthquake which struck back in September 2010. This time though the quake had really left it's mark by leaving some central and eastern areas resembling what can only be described as war zones. It's exposed how important the simple things in life can be. Things that we all normally take for granted, like basic utilities. Take away power, running water and drainage facilities and you find yourself in a pretty sobering situation. Hard for healthy folk to deal with but then factor in the very young, the old and not so healthy and it brings in very tough times. Over the past week we'd heard so many stats and figures, one that stuck was that 10,000 Canterburians per day were fleeing the Christchurch area either through fear of aftershocks or just simply through wanting to get away from all the madness that the quake has so selfishly left behind.

So with this said we gave it a wide berth as we were pretty sure the last thing they needed was a couple more tourists hunting round looking for land marks like the now sadly ruined cathedral.

Up from Dunedin on the east coast, is Moeraki Beach. Home to perfectly spherical like boulders that are dotted randomly along the beach like giant marbles that are steadily rolling from the dunes to the sea. Two
bucks gets you up close and personal with these giant like marbles. We had a great time messing around on them as the threatening incoming tide did its best to get us and fellow tourists and their camera gear as damp as possible. Once off the beach a fine example of the classic 'exit through the gift shop'. Our American friends can't get enough of it as many bags of 'treasures' were loaded back onto the many buses waiting in the main carpark.

Ohmaru is penguin HQ. After much local talk and many guide book entries we decide to rise above the hype and skip the drawcard which is the big 'pengiun tour' as we both agreed that it just wouldn't come close to what we'd experienced the previous night, for free. Instead we headed for Graves headland Track and a meander around this harbour based town. The town being a real charmer with some lovely old Victorian buildings filling the main high street. Pretty impressive architecture for a small seaside town known previously as a sheep station.

After 215 days away from home, we stumble across a good contender that resembles a good old English bitter. After much enjoyment and thorough extensive research spanning many states in many countries we find this possible contender: Monteiths Original Ale. A west coast brewery established in 1868. Typical just as we are about to tee up and leave!

Timaru is the first real sized town 2hrs South of Christchurch. At present the population has swollen by some 20% as it was housing around 6000 Christchurch residents now being referred to as 'refugees'. Our campsite had over 50 checked in all now categorised as homeless. Some pretty strong thoughts go through your head when you start thinking that the very person stood next to you at the sink cleaning their teeth maybe someone who's lost absolutely everything.