After the 30 degree heat of northern Queensland, Christchurch was COLD. Within about an hour of arriving, we had donned our hats, merino ski jumpers and (in my case) leggings under jeans to keep us warm in the bitterly cold wind, as we had an initial walk around the town centre – to buy gloves. We were very glad of our decision to invest in a bigger campervan for the NZ leg of our tour: our Hi-Top Apollo (pronounced a-polo here, the god of mints with holes) is big enough for us to stand up and cook in, and with its electric heater and two duvets, it should hopefully keep us warm in the winter nights, which apparently can reach 0 degrees at this time of year (oh goody).

Apart from the weather, the other big change from Australia was the currency: it was a relief to do the conversion to pounds in our heads at the airport (where we met Kate and Tim for a quick coffee, on the way home after a week's skiing in Queenstown) and realise we could afford a coffee AND a sandwich without bankrupting ourselves. This jubilance resulted in a mini-pub crawl that evening, where we sampled the local beer and astoundingly good house wine by roaring fires in a couple of local venues. Oxford Terrace was our starting point, before we moved on to SOL (South of Lichfield) which has become the new 'cool' area for Christchurchians to hang out. It being late on Saturday afternoon, the bars were just gearing up for a big night, but after 4 pre-6am starts in the last 5 days, we opted for an early night.

The next day, we followed the Lonely Planet's walking tour of the town. The book (clearly written by north Islanders) is slightly scathing about poor Christchurch, especially in comparison to Auckland and Wellington, but we really enjoyed it. Highlights were the Art Gallery, which is probably one of the best we've seen on the trip so far: very cool exhibit of photographs by an American artist named Taryn Simon about the unseen face of the US, showing things like the beach house where all NASA astronauts spend their last hours on earth with their families, and a picture of all the items confiscated at JFK within a 48 hour period, including, inexplicably, a pig's head. We also ventured to the old site of the University of Christchurch, since converted to an arts and crafts centre, but which still houses 'Rutherford's Den,' where Ernest Rutherford was a student and conducted some of his early investigations into the structure of the atom. James was in his element, waxing lyrical about the genius of the gold foil experiments. I was just surprised about the fact he was a Kiwi.

The Christchurch Museum was also excellent, giving us our first taste of Maori history and probably the highlight of the trip so far, a visit to the Paua Shell House. Fred and Myrtle Flutey were an old couple with a strange obsession with paua shells (a bit like bluey-green mother of pearl). Not content with just collecting thousands of the things, they decided to decorate their living room from floor to ceiling with them, along with shell clocks, shell telephones, stuffed deer wearing pearl earrings and miscellaneous garden gnomes. Proud of their creation, they opened their home up to the general public, and some 1m+ tourists paid a visit to the kitsch paradise during the 40 years it was open. After they died as national legends in the early noughties, some bright spark at the museum decided to buy it and recreate it brick by brick within the museum for future generations to enjoy. Words cannot describe it – if you are ever in Christchurch you simply must go and see it for yourself.