Dreams Impossible Dreams: Home sweet home...

Well we arrived home at 8am yesterday morning and were home in Newcastle by lunchtime. It all happen so suddenly one minute we were in NZ and then we were home, but it is good to be home!

However to finishing off our NZ trip there is just one last post and then reality will well and truly set in.......

Our last day in Dunedin started bright and early with a trip to the Farmers Market in the old Railway building. The Market was small and as we could not partake of all the beautiful food we did not stay long, but we did buy some Manuka honey to bring home.

The railway building was spectacular (as you can see the Dunedin mist has not cleared yet!).

As were were standing admiring the railway building we noticed that the Dunedin prison was directly across the road! Right there in the center of town and across the road from the railway... not the place I would have put it but you know...

As we had a bit of time we went for a walk through the city and they really do have some spectacular architecture!

After that it was bye bye Dunedin as we drove through the fields of sheep to the airport and got on our plane to Christchurch.

Although it was a beautiful day the day that we flew into Christchurch the next day, and our last day in NZ, was overcast and very very cold! However despite that, we braved the cold and jumping on a bus went to see some of what Christchurch had to offer on a cold Sunday.

We started our day at the Riccarton Art Markets which are in Riccarton House and Bush parkland.

We then went on the tranquil walk through the preserved bush land in the hope that we would see a Kiwi before we left. Unsurprisingly we didn't, but it was a nice walk.

And we got to see the oldest building in the Canterbury Planes.

And a very large tree.

From there we grabbed lunch - and we finally (!) had a piece of Lolly Slice - a very unique NZ invention.

Then on the bus again we hopped and went into the center of Christchurch to Re:START. Re:START is a project set up in Christchurch to start to rebuild the city center. After clearing all the dangerous buildings from the site they erected shipping containers to house some of the shops that had previously been in the city. It is an amazing sight - brightly coloured shipping containers and reestablished street-scape that give the city hope.

At the end of the mall you finally get a glimpse of, not only what the Re:START mall looked like before the clean up, but also the true extent of the damage from the quake. It is a sad and eerie experience looking at what had been.