Sledging

Duck

Of course, we had to have a snowball fight.

Snowman

We had a great time building a snowman. Loads of people in the street had the same idea so there was a line of them all down the street.

The Icing On the Quake

Even this badly damaged church looks pretty covered in snow.

Kiwi Ingenuity

This block of shops in Merivale was destroyed in the February aftershock. Quinns clothes shop has moved into the main mall but someone had the bright idea of making a shop display out of these shipping containers.

Merivale

Went to get some supplies. Not many shops were open and I am glad we have 4WD as the roads were treacherous.

Our Street

Yay, No School!

Birthday Present

Had a great day relaxing after James' party yesterday. Warriors won, no earthquakes and now have tomorrow off work because of the snow!

Feeding Time

It was amazing watching the stingrays being fed. There are several very large ones. This one is 45 years old. The young woman who was feeding them was mobbed by two of them at one point. Amazing especially when she revealed that she had been stung by a stingray in the wild when she was younger.

Tunnel

The aquarium features this long tunnel which you can walk through and watch the

Giant Squid 2

I have been interested in giant squid for ages and now I have seen two in less a year. This one weighs 250kg and would have been 11 metres long with her tentacles stretched out.

I hope someday that someone gets some good live footage of these or even the larger colossal squid.

Penguins

Kelly Tarlton's has a colony of King penguins. You can ride around them on a hägglund and watch them swimming in the pool.

Jaws

It is a fibre glass megalodon.

Auckland Skyline

This morning is cold and windy. We drove to Kelly Tarlton's which is somewhere I have always wanted to visit. I share my sister's fascination with aquariums.

The view across the bay to Auckland was very impressive.

War Memorial

Doodlebug

The museum is also a war memorial and so it has some great stuff about the military history of New Zealand. There is a mock up of a WWI trench that you can walk through and some great warplanes including a spitfire, a zero and this V1 rocket.

Giant Penguin

These giant penguins lived in New Zealand 20 million years ago. They grew up to 1.5m tall.

Marae

The museum features good exhibitions of Maori and polynesian culture.

There is a great section about the large volcanic caldera that lies underneath the city. Looking at this made me glad to live in Chch. A new volcano could emerge anywhere within the greater Auckland area at any time. It happens every few hundred years and there would only be a day or two of warning. I would take earthquakes over a volcano any day.

There is even a house you can enter that simulates what it would be like to be living in Auckland when it happens. James looked at Tracy and asked if the house was going to shake? When she said yes he bolted. I guess he has experienced enough real earthquakes that he doesn't need to experience a simulated one.

Entrance Hall

The entrance hall is dominated by this huge wooden ball.

Auckland Museum

This is one of the best in the country and I could easily spend the whole day here.

Climbing Trees in Auckland Domain

After the show we went to visit Auckland museum but first James had to have a run around in the big park that surrounds it.

T-Rex

The final act featured a mother and baby T-Rex which had everyone entranced. The mother sauntered to the front of the stage eyed up the audience and unleashed a deafening raw. The baby responded with a rather pathetic yelp which had everyone in stitches.

Giants

Another highlight was these two Brachiosaurs, a mother and child. These were the largest creatures ever to walk the earth and these robot versions were very impressive.

The lighting and audio part of the show was also incredible. This scene ended with a lightning storm which caused a forest fire complete with smoke. All the vegetation you can see wilted before a rain storm brought the forest back to life.

Stegosaurus

The show was amazing. The dinosaurs are so realistic and move about all over the stage. You see them eating, fighting. One even did a giant dinosaur poo on the stage which the kids found hilarious.

The highlight for me was this Stegosaurus which is my favourite dinosaur.

Ready for the Show!

This is the Vector Arena in Auckland where we are about to see 'Walking With Dinosaurs'. Today is the last day of the show before it finishes its world tour. James loves the TV show and I expect he will love this.

Sky Tower at Night

The tower is part of the Sky City Casino complex. We had a good chinese meal in there before heading back to our hotel.

Why We Live In CHCH

I would choose earthquakes over Auckland traffic any day.

Jumpers

It costs $220 to do this and they jump at a rate of about one every four minutes. When I was younger I would have loved to have a go. Now you couldn't pay me to do it!

Auckland From the Sky Tower

The view from the top is great. The weather was wet and windy so that produced some great rainbows and made the tower shake a bit.

View Through The Floor

More Glass Floors

James was not scared at all but Tracy could hardly look at him doing this.

Scary Lift

The elevators were pretty freaky. The wind was howling down the shafts and the first lift we got in tried several times to go up, went about a metre, bounced a bit and then dropped down again. Apparently the pressure of the wind was too high. We took the next lift but Tracy was quite nervous. I don't think the glass floor helped! The picture is the view down the lift shaft.

Auckland at Last

What a stressful journey! First the cancellation and then James was sick as we were descending. When we finally landed I got into a row with the air hostess who wanted me to wait till the plane had come to a complete stop before I helped James out of his clothes.

Anyway here we are at the bottom of the sky tower. I have not been here since Tracy and I first emigrated in 2002.

The Munted City

After take off we got a good view of our home town. The damage doesn't look as bad from up here.

Off to Auckland

We are off for a long weekend in Auckland. The main purpose is to see 'Walking With Dinosaurs' but we should get to do lots of other fun stuff.

We have been planning this for weeks but we only told James on Thursday as we did not know if we would be able to make it. The ash from the Chilean volcano has grounded most flights in New Zealand and Australia and this morning Jetstar texted me at 2AM to let us know that our flight had been cancelled! We managed to get a later flight though.

This is the view of the old airport lounge which is being demolished. I will miss it, it was one of the nicest in the world with a viewing platform to watch the planes taking off and a bar with a panoramic view of the runway and the Southern Alps. The new airport lounge is rubbish, the only window looks over a car park.

First Day at School

James starts school soon. Today he is attending his new school for a morning visit.

We Won

Final score Canterbury 52, North Otago 8.

James and Larry the Lamb

At the Rugby

AMI stadium is munted so one of the few good things about the earthquake is that Canterbury now play at Rugby Park which is a few minutes walk from our house.

There are no flood lights so games have to played in the afternoon. This means that James' first trip to the rugby is real old school: walking to the ground, standing on the terrace and watching in the sunshine just a few metres from the action.

We had a great time.

Munted

This old house on the corner of Fendalton Rd and Deans Ave is in a bad way. It would have probably survived if it hadn't been so close to the river Avon. Unfortunately the land under most buildings close to a waterway suffered liquefaction and lateral spreading.

Munted

This building was built to replace a business that had collapsed in the Sept erathquake. It is munted after the latest aftershock on June 13th. It had only been open a few days.

June 13th Earthquake

This is the view of the port hills as the latest earthquake hit. The dust clouds are the result of cliffs collapsing from Redcliffs to Sumner

Here we go again, again

And another huge one just hit, the biggest yet. Only Lasted about 15 seconds but the whole house was shaking nw-se by about a metre. Tracy and James are fine and on their way home.

Another big aftershock.

Just had another large quake here in Chch. Only a 5.5 but it was the most violent shaking yet.

RSA Sumner

It was heartbreaking to see Sumner. So many of the fine old buildings have been demolished and the nicest suburb in chch now looks like a warzone. This is the RSA which was hit by a massive rockfall killing 2 people.

Narrow Escape

This house had a narrow escape but lots didn't and were engulfed by the falling rocks.

Redcliffs

Went for a drive out to Sumner for the first time since the February quake. All along the coast the cliffs have collapsed. In Redcliffs this whole section collapsed and narrowly missed the local school.

The Dozers Reach Merivale

The corner of Mansfield Ave and Papanui Rd is gone.

Full Steam

A Really Useful Engine

The driver of the steam train let us ride up front. It was the warmest place to be.

Fire Chief

James loves fire engines so the Hall of Flame at Ferrymead is just the thing on a cold wet day.