Our one month in New Zealand, from the south island to the north island starts here, in and around Christchurch.

We had read about Christchurch and the recent history some days before, but just casually walking around downtown not thinking, we came past something that looked like a city center all made up of shipping containers and said to each other: “now, that’s something different…nice…but…”.

It took us some time and some clapping on the forehead to remember that Christchurch was actually very recently hit by a terrible earthquake, which left very few tall buildings intact – in fact very few buildings at all. Now all these cranes and construction sites started making sense: the city had been practically completely erased and is being rebuilt anew.

After enjoying the city in its new light, we took our 4 wheeled new green home and drove towards Akaroa, a small fisher village set in a lovely landscape just some one or two hours drive away. Before reaching our destination we stopped for the night at one of the many “free camping” sites which are scattered around the country and available to campers which are equipped with self-contained vehicles (fresh and gray water tanks, portable camp toilet available). This one was particularly nice, and very popular amongst tourists and mosquitoes :-).

The next morning we made an early start, just to enjoy the beautiful view from the top of the scenic route which leads to Akaroa. It turned out the view would have been quite wonderful, had there not been a thick fog just about at the height of the scenic route leaving us sight of nothing but some small rabbits running away from the oncoming campervan….wonderful view…hmmm :-/

I don’t want to ruin the suspense about our next posts, but the bad weather will be following us for quite some time in New Zealand…”Summer is the best time to visit NZ….” says the guide…. hmmm…