counterpart - New Brighton! We found an internet café but unfortunately it was full of kids playing games so we had a deafening hour on the internet. After this we called Penny and made arrangements to meet up with her between 10 and 10.30 the next morning.

Penny came to the campsite to meet us and it was really good to see her again, so much had happened and so many places had been visited since we had last seen her. For her, she had said goodbye to the UK and been on a 6 week trip around South America - so we all had lots of tales to tell! She was now back in New Zealand for good and was hoping to get the job she had applied for at Christchurch hospital. Penny had offered to chauffer us around for the day so our first stop was the Christchurch gondola, unfortunately the weather was rather cloudy so we didn’t get the best of views, but it was still pretty interesting as they had lots of

information about the area and its early European settlers in the visitor centre. After this we headed back into the centre of Christchurch and had a wander around then headed for the art gallery - oh what cultured souls we are!!! The art gallery was well … more of a modern art affair with some interesting stuff and some stuff that really was stretching the boundaries of what you can call art!!! The Antarctica exhibit was most disappointing and Rob and Penny were particularly rude about it and to be honest I’ve seen better end of year student displays - say no more!!!

We were still on the hunt for the flaming Rough Guide to USA and Penny said we should try the large shopping complex just out of the city - its so like the UK! We headed off and low and behold we found a Borders bookshop, and Penny found not one but 3 copies of the Rough Guide on the bottom shelf - phew our book mission was