Christchurch, then on to our new house.

It has been nearly a week since my last update. Internet connection has been almost non existent with the exception of internet cafés etc. We are expecting broadband in the house soon. The modem has arrived, but the internet connection will not be happening till Tuesday, give or take.

Also of great annoyance is that Julie's laptop doesn't have Photoshop so I've had to download a dodgy free RAW converter for my camera and use Paintshop Pro. Although at this stage I've only been taking snapshots, it's still annoying not being able to do simple edits. I will post and persevere though.

As you'd expect, we have made a lot of discoveries in the last week since arriving in Hoki, but I will stagger their delivery over the next few days rather than including one really really long post.

After buying the car, we still had 3 days in Christchurch to relax. Christchurch I think is the garden city. I may be making it up though. Adelaide is it's sister city, so perhaps it is in fact another city of churches. It does have a big church in the centre of town, and a 'church' in its name so the evidence seems damning. Some pictures taken from a wander around (including aforementioned church in the centre of town).

We headed across Arthur's Pass to Hokitika last Monday. The road was a great drive in summer, though given that it climbs to around 1000m in places the possibility of being cut off from Christchurch in winter seems a real possibility (at least for short durations.) On the upside it seems that there will be some ski fields within an hour and half drive from Hokitika (assuming favourable road conditions)

Our house, described in an email as 'reasonably well presented' is actually just as advertised – reasonably well presented. It looks to be a 50's brick veneer. The kitchen is relatively modern, with good bench space and a newish oven/stove. Also included are a nice size lounge, 3 bedrooms, laundry, bathroom and study. Plenty of empty space as at the time we had no possessions. As of a couple of days later we now have a cheap TV, second hand couch, bar stools (but no table). The main bedroom has nice views – both the ocean and the mountains (although the mountains, as pictured, have only been spotted by us on one occasion for about an hour – they seemed to remained permanently blanketed in cloud.)

Julie's main disappointment has been the lack of a 'kiwi letterbox', which seem to be in abundant supply around here - every second house has one. They're the ones with the little flag on the side: