Waipara to Christchurch.

No rush today as we only had to get to Christchurch, we reckoned about an hour and a halfs drive. After breakfast we had a final tidy up of the van and set off, Nigel driving. An easy drive to Christchurch but not easy to find the hire place even with the help of their plan. I was navigating and we had a few cross words but eventaully found our way back to the van's "home". As we approached we could see the cordons stopping anyone going into the central business district after the earthquake along with quite a lot of damage and a large sign warning us of earthquake damaged roads. The hire place was untouched but there was a large hole in the road just past their garage. We asked them to call a taxi for us and it arrived very quickly even before we had finished having the van checked over. Everything was OK with the van so we said our goodbyes and loaded ourselves and our belongings into the taxi. The taxi driver was very chatty and said that he would take us the long way round to the airport, with no extra charge, to see some of the earthquake damage. I felt that I would have been happier going straight to the airport but it was interesting aa well as frightening to see what had happened in Chhristchurch. Many of the streets had great piles of silt in the road after the earthquake had caused liquefaction of the sandy soil. There were lots of buildings that had major damage as well as many others with what seemed to be minor but nevertheless devastating damage for their inhabitants. Arriving at the airport we saw many of the international aid helpers, who had been helping in the rescue of people after the earthquake, waiting for flights to return home. We had quite a while to wait before checking in and waiting for our flight back to Auckland.