A fairly easy flight out of Wellington yesterday afternoon which brought me into Christchurch airport less than an hour later, so hardly anytime in the air really. While waiting for Haig who was on a much later flight, I managed a few hours of sleep, or basically just chill out time, knowing full well the next 10 days will be anything but that. Once Haig's plane got in, an old work mate of his arrived to pick us up and offered to put us up for the night. Him and his wife, Emma, live fairly near the airport so that was handy. They also have a little 3 month old baby, which we were 'warned' about beforehand, so did hope he wasn't too much of an early morning guy.

After dropping our bags and grabbing a cold bottle from the fridge, Chris wasted no time in firing up the BBQ for dinner, despite it being rather cold, no one ever questions the weather when the BBQ is being fired up. After a really good meal, especially that it didn't involve a take away or pub grub, we headed the 5 minute walk down the road to the Rose & ThistleThorn & Whistle which was yes, another Irish pub. We started to wonder how much of their population was actually Irish!?

We didn't stay for more then a couple before heading back for a well deserved night's sleep. Was interesting (and frightening) to hear some of the stories about the earthquake back in February this year - not a place you'd really feel relaxed living I thought.

Chris had work this morning so offered to drop us at the train station on the way to work. After all showered and packed, we headed the long way round to the station, encircling the perimeter of the cordoned off centre of Christchurch. I actually had no real idea of the real destruction caused, and that the majority of the CBD was still shut off to people and traffic. There were also plenty of open plots of land where houses had once stood but collapsed after the quake. The council are slowly demolishing them, due to health and safety concerns. As Chris said, the one positive point is that Christchurch will have a lot more green areas and parks in the years to come. One of the most disturbing scenes driving around was seeing the Victoria Clock Tower, which was still pointing to 12:51 - the time of the February earthquake.

After a drive around the cordoned off area, we were dropped at the Christchurch train station, checked in, picked up our tickets and then waited for our train - the Tranz Scenic Alpine Express, which travels between Christchurch and Greymouth. The train was slightly delayed in it's arrival, apparently due to "an earlier derailment in the yard"... which had us all questioning our onward journey. After ignoring the slight derailment issue, we boarded the train, and departed Christchurch at 08h15, headed for Greymouth. The trip is often regarded to be one of the world's great train journeys for the scenery through which it passes . The journey is 223 kilometers one-way, taking about four and a half hours. There are 19 tunnels and four viaducts, with the Staircase Viaduct being 73 metres high.

Unfortunately our weather wasn't ideal to fully appreciate the surrounding scenery, but was still stunning. We passed through Springfield, Arthurs Pass, Otira and finally onto Greymouth, arriving just after lunch time. After a bite to eat and a bit of waiting around, we met up with the Kiwi Bus group, the lot of them who had been travelling together from Auckland all the way down. There were 5 of us who had been on the train and were joining the group for the rest of the journey down to Queenstown. After a brief introduction by Josh, we had a couple of hours to spare before we started the drive down from Greymouth, so we took a walk around town and popped into Danny Doolans Irish Bar, part of the Revington Hotel. Surely the series of Irish Bars will have to end at some point?! Anyway, a quick stop there, and it was back on the bus, and now enroute down to Lake Mahinapua, our stop for the night.