January 11, 2004

One of the key attractions in Christchurch is the International Antarctica Visitor Centre, a cross between an amusement park and a museum. Christchurch is the home base to the New Zealand, American and Italian Antarctica teams, and houses all of the special aircraft used to fly people and stuff to the ice bases. The Visitor Centre gives an insight into what goes on down there, as well as some of the history of ice exploration.

The highlight for the girls was the freezer room – a huge room re-creating the Antarctic landscape and temperature. The walls were covered in a huge mural of the scenery, and the sides and floor were covered in snow and ice. The temperature was kept at a brisk -5 C and there were various Antarctic items strewn around – a ski-doo, an ice cave and a polar explorer's tent. Coming into the room from outside, at a balmy +24 C, was brilliant – an immediate cooling off chance. But the girls loved it too much – every half hour the room simulated a polar storm, with the temperature dropping to -24 C. Charlotte loved this so much she stayed in for three of them. After just over an hour in the room, wearing shorts, I'd begun to wonder if it was possible to get frostbite on a sunny day!


Charlotte, of course, didn't feel the cold at all – but she was obviously getting cold, because her nose started to turn red, followed by her cheeks, and then her fingers. It was only when she started to gather snow and throw snowballs that she began to realise that it was pretty cold. Soon, her hands were freezing, and finally we were allowed to leave. Sarah, of course, hadn't been silly enough to enter the room, so she had plenty of time to explore the rest of the centre, and read all of the material on the walls – something that is often quite difficult to do if you're visiting somewhere with children.

The rest of the centre was interesting too, with conventional displays of all things Antarctic, and lots of short films and models to show how things work. We even found a photograph of one of our distant New Zealand relatives in one of the displays! We eventually left the centre four hours after we'd entered. Although it wasn't cheap (about £8 each) it turned out to be well worth it for all the time that we could spend there.

As with every country we've visited, we had to do some research to find the most economical and practical way to get around. In Canada we had a fortnight of public transport, and a fortnight of car hire; in the States it was only practical to hire a car for the month; Fiji was travelled by catamaran and in Oz it was a combination of camper van and hire car (the campervan was economical because the £25 a day covered transport and accommodation!).

Last time we were in New Zealand we hitched everywhere, and had a fantastic time because of all of the Kiwi's that we met that way. But this time, that isn't a practical option (Have you ever stopped to picked up a family of four hitching?). So it came down to choosing between bus and car – and with four of us it worked out cheaper to hire a car if we could get a good deal – especially as many of the shuttle buses charge full far for children. In the end we found a car hire company that would cost us NZ$29 (£11 a day), which is a brilliant deal considering that it is high season (the firm is Ace car rentals). And the car is a four door Japanese import. Japanese imports are the most common cars on the road here in New Zealand. They are cars which have been used in Japan, and then sold on the second-hand market for export to New Zealand. The Kiwi's get access to cheap cars, and the Japanese get some money for a car they don't want (the Japanese love new cars and hate second-hand ones, so they sell for peanuts).

So we've now got transport, and we don't have to lug our rucksacks onto buses and across town every day. A bonus for everybody, but it’s the last country it will happen in – once we get to Asia public transport will be the cheapest way to get around.