Christchurch

Day two saw us travelling from Christchurch (after coffee and a few photos) to half an Hour outside Greymouth on the West Coast, South Island, New Zealand.

Gorgeous scenery the entire way, we took photos out the window and made Dave pull owe a couple of times.

We drove over the Alps, stopping at Arthur’s Pass for lunch. There was still snow on the mountains and my pictures really don’t do it justice.

Surprisingly, it’s actually not that cold! I thought it would be freezing but it’s around 9-16degrees! The medium seems to be about 13, I’m happy with that.

We stopped at Greymouth for cheese, spreads, crackers and 2doz Bluff oysters to go with the Bollinger champagne from duty free (Ru & Dave live in Melbourne) and some fresh pasta for our dinner. We were staying half an hour out so needed to stock up.

We stopped at the beautiful pancake rocks in Punakaiki and ran around the loop to see the rocks and the blowholes.

Our place was about 15 mins from the pancake rocks and as soon as we pulled up knew we had a winner.

Dave had found a Luxury Beach house, it was literally on the beach surrounded by dense bush and nothing else.

We ran inside and iced the champagne, threw together our cheese board and rushed outside to catch the sunset. The view was incredible and the sunset beautiful out over the ocean.

The house was great, it would have slept about 10, with 4 bedrooms and a huge balcony. With no service out there they even had wifi for us.

We chilled on the balcony and headed inside once it was too cold for dinner.

Great find by Dave!

Day one of the your began too early if you ask me, with a bus to the airport and flying from Wellington to Christchurch.

Ru & Dave picked me up, I haven’t seen them in over a year, it was pretty exciting.

We checked out Cashel St with the Container mall and took in essentially what has become a disaster zone for tourists.

The container mall is cool, built to breathe new life in the city, there is some buzz around and we settled in for some breakfast.

We did a quick walking tour of the city, realising the scale of the devastation with each block.

We visited the cardboard church and stood in awe of some incredible pieces of art that provide a stark contrast to their surroundings.

We took the gondola up the top, at $25 it was well worth it. Gorgeous 365 degree views and you can walk around outside on the hills. Stunning. Not bad food either!

We checked in at our hotel and got ready for the Crusaders game, grabbing some great Chinese beforehand.

What an awesome atmosphere at the game! Flags everywhere, dancers, horsemen and a stadium full of passionate supporters – it was awesome. However after the beating they took, I think the whole of Canterbury was in mourning the next day!

I also had some twitter stardom, with Crusaders, Super Rugby and the All Blacks retweeting me which caused my phone to go crazy, felt quite nice to be popular briefly!