We flew into Christchurch arriving about 2:30pm. I quickly left to hitch the 30km North to Kaiapoi where Raggedy Ann (our van) had been in storage at Kaiapoi Mill. A nurse took pity on me trying to hitch in amongst all the road work going on near the airport and
she was going home to Kaiapoi… what luck

We did some shopping and drove to Linwood to camp.
Next morning Annette sorted out the van and I put the bike together.


As you can see the weather looked perfect but then a storm hit and we weren't sure about riding, but that seemed to pass so we headed to Port Hill






This photo is looking over the Port Hills towards Lyttleton Harbour

All these photos the weather seems fine but it was very windy and shortly afterwards the rain came then the sleet and the wind was so strong we couldn't safely ride over the grates and even walking was challenging. We headed back to the car pleased to be getting out of the miserable weather… but amazingly on the way down the track we passed extremely tough kiwis heading out for a run or ride, and not one but quite a few. It was difficult to see the rain was blowing so hard, but off they were going, rain, hail or wind.