After leaving Tasmania February 4th at 6:45am and arriving at the Melbourne airport at 9am, I was very appreciative of having the extra time in dealing with a little glitch.  My plane to New Zealand does not leave until midnight and I had to wait until 9:15pm to check in.   When I went to the desk to check in, the machine indicated I needed to meet with the hostess at the desk.  They informed me they needed to see a copy of my exit flight ticket out of New Zealand.  Apparently, you cannot enter New Zealand with a one-way ticket as a foreigner.  There was quite a line up for this same matter.  I had an exit ticket, but what complicated matters was that I was flying from Australia to South Island, NZ; then I was flying to Auckland and then flying from Auckland to Fiji.  Much less complicated to fly return to one area.  The lesson I learned at the airport was that sometimes internet was not available and this made it difficult to show a copy of my exit ticket.  I had to step aside so the fine attendants could deal with other clients until I could find my ticket to show them.  After about fifteen minutes of searching, I found a copy I had saved to my camera before I left Canada.  This was fortunate, otherwise I would not have been allowed on the plane.  The attendants were very pleasant and assisted to make certain all would work out.  I got to New Zealand at 5:15am and picked up my rental car.

I drove to the hotel, parked the car and walked to the downtown section of Christchurch.  I was tired and did not feel it to be wise to be driving.    While walking around, I passed by a Church and the back portion had staging along with stones spread on the ground.  At first, I thought someone was doing shabby repair work, come to find out that it was not staging, but supportive braces for the remaining wall.  The damage to this Church was from an earthquake that took place in 2011.  The earthquake was at 6.3 on the Richter scale that hit Christchurch killing 185 people.  The town was very clean and I enjoyed the walk by an old trolley system in operation along with watching a couple people playing on a giant chess board.  It was quite evident the devastation that hit this town from the boarded-up windows in buildings, cracked foundations and windows, and in one area there was an entire block of buildings boarded up [the buildings did not look that old].  The number of renovations that have been completed, along with the large amount of construction taking place in the center of town, was a good indication of the determination of this community.  A short distance walk was a block of a newly developed street called New Regent Street.  This entire block is for walking only along with a trolley train going through the center of it.  No vehicles permitted on this street unless for loading or repairing.