On to Christchurch.

Continuing north, our first stop was Moeraki to check out the unusual spherical boulders. I still don't get why they are so round! From the description given for the process which formed them I couldn't see why they would be as close to perfect spheres as they are...

Next was Oamaru. They have a bit of an 'Old Town' quarter with lots of craft places and souvenirs and a fairly cool Steam Punk museum and workshop. Emma and Cathy took a short ride in a horse drawn carriage.

Our destination for the night was Christchurch where our only plans were to visit the Antarctic Centre the following morning. Christchurch airport is the jump off point for the US, New Zealand and Italian presence in Antarctica. A couple of Hercules aircraft with skis fitted were parked outside hangers just across the road from the Antarctic Centre. The centre has static and AV displays about all aspects of the operations, wildlife and history. We watched their penguins being fed, there was a 4D movie (3D plus some motion and other effects) and we had a ride in a Hagglund, a tracked, articulated vehicle for use on ice and snow. In their storm simulator we braved -8C with lots of wind noise but not much actual wind. Zak had fun on the ice slide.



I ate too much lunch in the cafeteria so Cathy had to do most of the driving in the afternoon on our way to Akaroa. The sunset was...



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