Kiwi fruits

I knew I was going to New Zealand when I went up to the bar in a pizza restaurant on our first night here. Different country means different beer and I didn't know what was what so I asked the barman for a pint of whatever he recommended. As he was pulling the pint he asked where I was from. "Scotland", I replied. He seemed unmoved by this but as he plonked the pint on the bar he said "Tell you what, Scotsman, this one's on me". I come from a country where beer is practically a currency, so I was pretty chuffed.

And that's not the only good thing about Christchurch, here on New Zealand's south island, far from it. It's a beautifully kept city, which has a very obvious English feel to it. The river that lazily meanders through the city center is called the Avon, and you can even go punting on it. Many of the older buildings wouldn't be out of place in Cambridge or York, and among the English place names paid tribute to in street names are Gloucester, Worcester, Manchester, Hereford, Durham and Oxford, amongst others. It's incredibly laid back, as I am assured most places in New Zealand are, and above all it's very easy to feel at home here.

Jen and I have hired a campervan to live in for this next adventure, Claire is going off to see if she can find some work on a farm somewhere, and we've got roughly seven weeks to explore both islands of New Zealand, which should be ample time. So on Friday we're heading out of Christchurch a few miles to the east to something called the Banks Peninsula, which was created by two volcanic eruptions some time in the past and is now home to the Francophile village of Akaroa. In the meantime, there's a glow in the dark mini golf course here that I have to check out, and I might pop back into that pizza restaurant...