Out and In

Well, they've let us out of Australia and in to New Zealand!

I'll post up Junior Grendel Number One's departure story that he wrote as we waited in Brisbane in a day or so. He borrowed the Green XO laptop and I helped him compose a little story describing what we were doing.

Our flight across was fairly uneventful and Virgin lived up to their reputation as 'Cheap and Cheerful'. The staff were great, the prices of food and drinking not gougingly high and they didn't glance askance when we opened the pack-dinners we had prepared for the Junior Grendels.

The aircraft was an older 737 but had pretty good leg room - a little more than the domestic Qantas flight we took.

I called Apex at 8.30 and they arrived right on time to pick us up to go and arrange the hire of the Toyota Rav4 we'll be driving around NZ - as described online the car is a 2007 model, in fairl good nick with only the usual wear and tear scrapes but it drives well and has fantastic boot space.

We spent the morning admiring Christchurch - it really is the most beautiful city, and Mrs Grendel has been for two walks along the Avon River out in front of our hotel.

The Junior Grendels are settling into the travelling habit and are even starting to be a little more cooperative about some things - although Junior Grendel Number One was a bit out of sorts today and had a minor moment sitting on the floor in a cafe - until the offer of a swim once we got back to the hotel perked him up enough to accept some chocolate ice cream.

We visited two great cafes today - very impressive and I regret that we cannot get around to all that I have heard about.