Self Drive South New Zealand : Day 1 - Christchurch

11 August 2011

After eleven hours journey we safely landed at Christchurch International Airport at 2 pm. I managed to catch some sleep as there was empty seat next to me. Four hours ahead may cause a bit of jet lag. We declared on our arrival card for the food that we bring. We knew there is huge possibility that they will throw our food, but luckily only the spicy beef. The rest was ok. Legaaa.

Next, we called our rental car which the pick up point was located very near to the airport. We rented Toyota Corolla Auto at NZ59/day with GPS. We tried hard (not) to pay attention and memorised the demonstration on how to fit the snow chain into the tyre. At the same time, we are given a copy of the instruction manual.

It was a gloomy day. Its raining when we check in to our motel - Avalon Motel which near to city centre and have free wifi. The city centre was badly damaged due to the earthquakes in Sept last year and in Feb this year. They yet to re-build any of the building but I saw on TV they have a huge plan on how to redesign the city. The earthquakes caused an estimated NZ15 billion of damage. We went to Countdown to buy some groceries for us to survive for the next few days. I saw our own Laksa and Penang curry in can :)