New Zealand - Christchurch

After an uneventful flight with a brief stopover in Sydney we we're coming into land in Christchurch. The weather was pretty good and the approach clear which allowed us to take in some of the beautiful scenery that we'd be exploring in the near future.

Prior to leaving Perth we'd jumped online and found ourselves a hotel in walking distance to Christchurch centre for our first few nights. Spotting a good price on Lastminute and checking the reviews on Tripadviosr we settled on the Best Western Camelot hotel.

Made up to look like olde English chalets it's a cute little hotel but the rooms we're large and clean and the location convenient for local restuarants and only a 15 min walk into the main city.

After spending some time calling around the van companies in search of a bargain for our home and transport for the next six weeks we wandered into town to stretch our legs after the long flight, get our bearings and grab some dinner.

After walking through Cathedral Square, the main centre we found a restaurant we liked the look of and grab a table out front under the patio heaters (the temperature was around 16 degrees, a 20 degree drop in the last 24 hours since leaving Perth!) and settled in for a great first meal. Even better was our surprise when the bill arrived. With the current exchange rate just under £3 to the NZ $1, Two mains plus drink totalled less than £20! This New Zealand leg could work out to be a bargain...

The weathe forecast was scheduled to take a turn for the worst with cold spells and rain forecast for most of the next week. Growing soft and acustomed to 30+ degrees most days we headed back into town on our first full day to hunt down some warm layers to see us through.

We lucked out coming across a store with a 70% sale on and purchased a number of Icebreaker base layers that keep you hot when it's cold and cool when it's hot. Made of Merino wool these may well be the only items of clothing we'll be wearing over this leg of the adventure.

Happy with our pruchases we settled in for some touristy sight seeing taking in the Cathedral, the trams, the parks and the art centre home to a great little micro brewery, the Dux Lux - thoroughly recommended to anyone heading this way.

After a few follow up calls regarding the van we'd settled on a knocked down price for an almost new Toyota Hiace (a newer model of our beloved Betsey), paid our deposit and arrange a time to pick it up the next day...or so we thought.