After a 10-hour flight from Singapore, I laid eyes on New Zealand for the first time in almost three years. This is on the approach to Auckland Airport.

After a subsequent three-hour layover and another hour in the air, we were on the approach to Christchurch Airport and I was home again at last!

Overlooking Christchurch towards the CBD. After the devastation caused by the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes, the CBD skyline is a lot thinner than when I last saw it. Much more on this tomorrow.

This is my lake, kind of. My house (co-owned with my Mum) sits on the shore of this lake just north of Christchurch. We were lucky in that our house sustained only minimal damage during the quakes.

Walkway around the lake - pretty nice huh!

This property didn't fare so well from the quakes, and is due for demolition (it's looking pretty wonky). Another house further along the shore all but completely fell in the lake after the February quake, and has since been demolished.

And this is our magnet board hehe. From every country / city I visit, I try to pick up a fridge magnet. This collection has been growing slowly but surely over the last six years. Anyway, it's awesome to home! :)

12:52pm, the time the February 22 earthquake all but destroyed Christchurch. This clock (along with several others) have been stuck on this time ever since.

Much of the Christchurch CBD is still closed off (known as the "Red Zone") while buildings are being demolished and unsafe buildings are still on the brink. This evening we took a bus tour through the Red Zone, which is aimed at helping people to "reconnect with the CBD" and see the current state of it first-hand.

The damage ranged from relatively minor, such as a missing spire and the like...

...to pretty severe, with the powers that be still 50/50 on whether many of our old heritage stone buildings can be or should be saved.

Christchurch's tallest building, the 5-star Grand Chancellor Hotel, is just one of dozens of buildings in the CBD deemed unsalvageable and is in the midst of demolition.

This sand-like shit is liquefaction. During both the September 2010 quake and the February 2011 quake, thousands upon thousands of tonnes of this shit (in its liquid form) was spewed up from the earth and inundated many streets and neighbourhoods.

Other buildings scheduled for demolition look, at least from the outside, as though there is little wrong with them aside from a few blown out windows. The BNZ building here which overlooks Cathedral Square is due to come down tomorrow.

Several more have already been taken down, and an empty plot of land is all that's left.

In many places, such as here in Cashel Mall, ad-hoc shops and bars etc. have been slapped together out of cargo crates hehe. And they actually look really good! Artsy if nothing else.

And this is our iconic Christchurch Cathedral. After walking past it a countless number of times over the years and taking it somewhat for granted, it's fucking painstaking to now see it like this. Those powers that be are also 50/50 over this as well, but after seeing it first-hand I think it really would be a miracle if this could be salvaged.

Even ten months on, much in the Red Zone has been left exactly as it was that day since no one is allowed into these places. Book shops still have books scattered all over the floor that fell from their shelving, and restaurants (including McDonalds and KFC) still have food and drink and crockery etc. sitting on the tables, exactly as they were when people ran for their lives that day. It's like looking into a life-size time capsule.

One table had an open menu sitting on it. Imagine sitting there, just another day in the life, deciding what to have for lunch, when suddenly the city starts to fall around you. For 182 people, it was their final experience.

Having seen all of this on the news and in news articles online at a time when I was until to be here myself, this was a very sombre and sobering experience. It was good to have some family time afterwards!

Nice moonlit eerie kind of night for a bit of a drive around the hood. Back in the day there were a couple neighbourhoods in and around Christchurch that were famous for their impressive Christmas lights. Most every house on every street was lit up. In one particular area, an American family moved in, went nuts with the lights (as American's do) and over the years that followed the rest of the neighbourhood followed suit. That became a bit of a Christmas-time attraction for the locals, until the minority thought it'd be funny to vandalise some of them and otherwise cause trouble, so inevitably the residents stopped bothering. However, a few spots around the city do still make the effort. The house on the right has their lights rigged up to a computer to have them flash in synch with Christmas carols - nice.

For the time being I'm using Mum's car to get from A to B until Kristina and I buy one of our own for this upcoming road trip after Christmas. I filled her up with petrol today and was gobsmacked to see it took $100 hahaha! Fuel prices were bad when I was last here almost three years ago but now they're just a disgrace!

This sorry sight was across the road from the gas station. It was once a large church but after the earthquakes this is all that's left of it.

If only that's all it would take.

This is out in the suburb of Redcliffs. The side of this cliff basically just collapsed during the quakes, and those houses sitting on top of it went with it.

The main road beneath those cliffs is lined with these shipping containers to prevent further rockfalls from aftershocks taking out the traffic.

And this is/was "Shag Rock", not because horny locals would copulate against it, but because the shags liked to sit in and sun themselves. Well it's now called "Shag Pile" - the quakes were so violent that this massive rock simply disintegrated.

Further up in the Port Hills, these fucking huge boulders (some the size of houses) were hurled down the hillside and straight into (and in some cases right through) peoples' homes.

This one would have come from up through those trees, crashed through the fence and slammed into the back of the house. Someone's dream home with the awesome view over Christchurch gone in just a couple minutes.

Later tonight Kristina and I went for a drive through to Lyttelton on the other side of the Port Hills. Lyttelton looks absolutely nothing like I remember it - it has all but been wiped off the map. The views over the bay are just as amazing as always though.

This was shot from the Port Hills looking towards the Christchurch CBD. Spot the big dark area in the centre of the shot - that is (or was) the city centre. A lot has happened since I last stood here and took a similar shot, and no one saw it coming. Keep in mind these quakes exposed fault lines that geologists didn't even know where there - they hadn't moved in millennia.

So this is my younger brother Jared, a 22-year-old natural-born entertainer who thus far has chosen to use that natural-born talent in a number of self-made (and very successful) metal bands. Be that as it may, we can all see acting on the cards one day hehe. Here he is being a role model for the kids...

Acting out the opening and closing scenes of Lion King with his cat, Bonehead...

And soothing our pop-filled ears with some good old Death Metal or Black Metal (there is apparently a difference).

Not a lot of updates lately but there's no shortage of shit we've been doing, from meeting up with family and friends, to a myriad of administrative crap (renew passport, sort bank accounts, etc.) and not least of all searching for a good car in which to do our road trip after Christmas! And after what has been something of a long and frustrating search I finally decided upon this beast - a 2000 Subaru Legacy RSK-B4. Under the hood is a 2.0-litre twin-turbo rated at 280hp when it rolls off the factory floor. This one has had very little done to it - just an aftermarket body kit and rear muffler, and it's a pretty damn nice machine and shit it can move! It's been a long time since I've washed a car, let alone a car I own :)

In the last two days since I bought the Legacy on Monday I've done the following to it: reattached the rear bumper (was loose one side and not bolted in at all on the other), had the panel beater address the splits in the fibreglass front bumper, removed all the tar from the paint work and covered all the stone chips with touch-up paint (someone has driven it too fast through a newly-sealed road), polished out all the little minor scrapes and scratches from the body, thoroughly cleaned the inside (which looked as though it hadn't been done in, well, ever), fitted a new clutch pedal cover as the original just wasn't there, and a myriad of other little bits and pieces. All totalled those things have cost me maybe $100 but have probably added a lot more to the value of the car simply because it looks loved and looked after - makes a big difference. Anyway, today we took it onto the open road for a day-trip to stretch its legs.

First up was a quick stop at Birdling's Flat, named after the Birdling family who were the first European Settlers to farm the area. I have vague memories of coming to this pebble beach as kid, Dad getting the car stuck in the pebbles, and several randoms all helping to get it out hahaha! Despite those attractive turquoise waters, swimming is not allowed here due to strong currents that pretty much guarantee you won't be coming back.

This is overlooking the head of Akaroa Harbour, specifically Barrys Bay (not sure who Barry is), Duvauchelle Bay (and the town of Duvauchelle), Robinsons Bay, and Takamatua Bay. This is pretty much right in the middle of Banks Peninsula, formed by two giant volcanic eruptions back in the day and the most prominent volcanic feature of New Zealand's South Island. Our destination for the day is on the other side of the Harbour and further to the right.

And this is it - the little French town of Akaroa. During the early part of the 19th century, the British were in the midst of attempting to colonise New Zealand. This eventually led to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Be that as it may, two years earlier in 1838, a French captain made a provisional purchase of land in the greater Banks Peninsula. He then returned to France, and advertised for settlers to come to New Zealand. With backing from the French government, 63 settlers headed for the peninsula in 1840. However, when the Brits got wind of this, they rushed their own warship to raise the flag at Akaroa, claiming British sovereignty under the Treaty of Waitangi. Had those French settlers arrived just a couple years earlier, the entire South Island could have become a French colony, and New Zealand's future may have been very different (and I'd be a native French speaker). The French did settle Akaroa however, but in 1849 their land was sold to the so-called "New Zealand Company", and in 1850 a large group of British settlers arrived. The area still has a French influence, reflected in many local place names and buildings.

Akaroa is home to just 570, and is very touristy. Jet boating and whale watching and swimming with the dolphins etc. can all be done here. It's a bloody cute wee town though and at only 80-minutes from Christchurch it makes for a great day-trip.

Oh and there's a lighthouse. Yeah.

It's not much of a beach, but it's something.

An American in New Zealand, realising it's not actually a state of Australia nor the capital of Australia, or Australia at all ;)

During the weekend Akaroa can get pretty busy with day-trippers from Christchurch, but we almost had the place to ourselves today.

Another one of my earliest memories is this fish and chip shop hehe. Incidentally, no one in the world does fish and chips like New Zealand - not the British, not anybody. Just wanted to put that out there.

Kapai!

Overlooking Akaroa from the surrounding hills.

As the sun was going down on the longest day of the year (or the shortest if you're in the northern hemisphere), we headed home but via the hilly back roads instead of the highway we'd come in on.

Welcome to New Zealand :)

That scenic route took us past some more of the Banks Peninsula bays, and the Legacy had a great time screaming through the winding hilly roads (as did Kristina ;)

In September last year, Christchurch was rocked by a major earthquake that reached a whopping 7.1 on the Richter scale and revealed fault lines that geologists had no idea were even there. Six months later in February this year, we were rocked again by a magnitude 6.3 - less powerful than the first but it was centred at a much shallower depth and therefore caused much greater damage to the city. Furthermore, 181 people lost their lives. Then in June we had yet another shallow 6.3-magnitude quake which caused further damage to the already devastated city. And then, after six months of relative calm, today happened.

At 1:58pm, I was reversing the car after just picking up my brother, Jared, from his flat, en route to his Christmas work drinkies. At first I thought I had a flat tyre, and then I heard weird noises from my open window which made me think I was running something over. A second later I clicked what was happening. The first big quake of the day was a magnitude 5.8, 8km deep, and centred 20km northeast of Lyttelton just off shore in the Pacific Ocean. Power went out in several areas across the city, shopping malls in the middle of one of their busiest days of the year were hastily evacuated, and people started to panic all over again.

At 2:06pm, we were stopped at a red light and the car started to shake again. This time it was a magnitude 5.3. I looked at the driver of the stationary car next to me, and he looked back at the same time. I made a wavy gesture with my hand and he nodded back at me hehe.

At 3:18pm, Kristina and I had left Jared to his work drinks and hit the road again to have a look around the city. We were driving at about 60km/h and listening to a local radio station. The DJ happened to be talking at the time, and with a lot of fear in his voice he suddenly paused and said "We're having another shake!" before going silent except for all the noise in the background. The car lurched violently from side to side for around ten seconds. I took my foot off the gas and let the car slow on its own while trying to hold it straight; some chick in the opposite lane on the other hand simply slammed on the brakes hehe (generally not a good idea). This was the largest of the day at 6.0.

At 4:50pm we were still driving in the car, and that same DJ was still trying to keep his fan base calm. While in the middle of a phone call from a listener he cut her off and said "We're having another one". Kristina and I didn't feel this one, but it was a magnitude 5.0, i.e. half as powerful as the 6.0 earlier (the Richter scale is a base-10 logarithmic scale).

It's now 10pm as I write this and have only felt one further very small shake. Our Boxing Day last year was rife with shaking and it may well be the same this year. I say "we" and "our" but I was in London and Paris when all this was happening. Until today I thought I'd missed all the action, but according to geologists these are new quakes as oppossed to aftershocks of the original September shake as the others have been. That being the case, there are likely to be many more in the days to come.

As with the previous quakes, liquefaction spewed to the surface and flooded roads and people's homes. Soil liquefaction describes a phenomenon whereby a saturated soil substantially loses strength and stiffness in response to applied stress, usually earthquake shaking or other sudden change in stress condition, causing it to behave like a liquid. In the February quake some 400,000 tonnes of this shit was cleaned up.

The general feeling about the city is that people are just over this shit now. It's been a horrible year, and for this to happen all over again at Christmas no less is the final straw for many. Several folk called the various radio stations we were flicking between to vent their frustration and announce their intention to leave Christchurch permanently (joining the thousands of others who already have).

A lot of traffic lights in the city were out, and there was traffic chaos on the roads as people tried to get away from work and others tried to get out of the city to start their holidays. Elsewhere huge holes opened up in the middle of roads. Before I bought my car on Monday, I had it put through a thorough pre-purchase inspection. The mechanic said it had some (minor) suspension damage that was consistant with many vehicles they had inspected over the last year caused by the atrocious condition of our roads at the moment.

This was the view of Redcliffs immediately after the first quake. Last week I put some photos up of houses (or what's left of them) teetering on the edge of the cliffs and the massive rock falls caused by the previous quakes. Well there were more rock falls this afternoon, and more hillside residents running for cover.

This bridge across the Avon River got trashed in the September quake. I remember seeing a photo of it on a news website, and probably said "Fuck!" Well it's still there, and a good reminder of just how powerful these quakes are. Imagine standing there watching this buckle before your eyes. Anyway, let's see how much sleep we get tonight...

That's "Merry Christmas" in Maori :) So what did you do today?

First thing's always first - opening prezzies!

And then round to Mum's mate's for a Christmas BBQ brunch.

Later on there was cricket...

...a trampoline...

...and a basketball hoop.

Then after the usual round of family photos, it was lunch / afternoon tea / dinner time. Hell yeah!

Tomorrow Kristina and I set out on this five-week road trip all over New Zealand so the family got together again for another BBQ, including some of the newer members of the family.

My brother Jared did his best to entertain...

...but his girlfriend Madi clearly isn't ready to have kids.

All of my little cousins were starting to get in the way, so I proposed a competition to see who could hold their hand in ice-water the longest hehe. So out went the beers and wine, and in went the hands.

Before long it came down to just me and my cousin Harrison, who is from Auckland, so north versus south pride was on the line.

After 15-20 agonising minutes I psyched him out and had beaten a bunch of kids, because frankly that's how awesome I am.

Jared and Madi then disappeared for a nice paddle on our lake.

I thought it'd be funny for the kids and I to hurl stones at them, and Jared thought it'd be funny to moon us - which it was. So yes, another typical family gathering. Anyway, let the road-trip commence!