After a 3 hour flight, we landed in Christchurch at 00:45. I don't think it's possible to be jet lagged on this trip but we were definitely feeling pretty scatty as we walked straight past the queue we needed to be in for passport control and instead went over to the New Zealand & Australian passport holders lane! Thankfully we realised before we reached the desk and quickly scuttled back out and over to the right queue! This delay meant that we were now close to the back of the queue so we had quite a wait and were sandwiched between a group of about 12 Koreans. It wasn't all bad though as it gave us the opportunity to watch events unfurl with the Korean group just like on one of my favourite TV shows, 'Border Control'!! It turned out not all of the group could provide evidence of their flight back out of New Zealand which is a requirement of immigration. As a result, the lady who is head immigration officer came storming through and very swiftly explained that if they couldn't provide evidence of their flight out then they would be put on the next flight back to Australia! Scary stuff indeed! After the dramas Gareth had back in January, we had our onward flights booked and the print outs ready to show so we had no problems and were allowed straight through, even though I wanted to hang around and see what happened with the Koreans! Still seeming pretty dazed and confused, we went to walk straight through to customs and out into the arrivals hall and it was only as we were halfway down the walkway that I realised we hadn't collected our baggage!!! We quickly dashed back to the carousel and grabbed them before making our declarations to the quarantine officers and having our bags screened by the X-ray machine and then we were out into the arrivals hall ready to try and find somewhere to sleep for the night!
 
I was pleased to spot a Vodafone stall and it was still open so we bought a new SIM card meaning we can still keep in touch with people even if there isn't any Wifi! It was then that we discovered we could be in for a pretty rough night as we saw a sign saying they close the terminal building between 12am and 5am for refurbishments! A lady working there explained that we would have to sit outside until 3am, when the other terminal building opened, and suggested we group together with some of the other waifs and strays to keep safe and warm!
 
It was here that we met the first 2 members of what was to become our Stray Family: Ella and Flore! Ella is from Kent and Flore is French . We found a sheltered spot against the wall of the building and made ourselves as comfortable as possible using their sleeping bags as covers! We really did look like tramps! Just as we had settled ourselves down for a rough few hours, a security guard came over and told us we weren't allowed to sit there and needed to move into the nearby smoking shed!!! We learned that while Ella was booked onto our Stray trip already and would be with us for all of our South Island adventures, Flore hadn't actually booked anything and was still open to suggestions! It didn't take long to convince her to join us on the Stray bus, we just had to hope there was space when it arrived! The time actually went pretty quickly as we chatted non stop but 3am still couldn't come quickly enough and as we saw the lights turn on in the terminal building, we all dashed over to warm up! We made our way upstairs and couldn't believe our eyes when we spotted long, cushioned benches - perfect for sleeping on! We raced over and chose a spot each before promptly falling asleep! I think we were asleep for about 20 minutes when we were rudely awoken by the same security guard as earlier telling us we had to sit up as the terminal was now open so we weren't allowed to lay down or sleep anymore! We were not amused!!!!!
 
There is a logical reason for this rule: on February 22nd 2011, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 struck the Canterbury region, forever altering the beautiful city of Christchurch, killing 181 people and devastating all New Zealanders. The earthquake caused widespread damage across Christchurch, especially in the central city and eastern suburbs. Huge amounts of liquefaction affected the eastern suburbs, producing around 400,000 tonnes of silt. The high death toll made it New Zealand's second deadliest natural disaster (after the Napier earthquake in 1931). The city has started to rebuild but sadly they still have a long way to go. As a result of this devastation, a large number of people were made homeless and, when the airport reopened, many made its terminals their new home! One man reportedly 'lived' there for 10 days before the authorities noticed and clamped down on people staying there overnight!
 
It was a difficult night and not the welcome to New Zealand we had expected! We continued to try to get sleep but we were constantly woken up again by the irritating security officers. Thank goodness there was free and very quick Wifi which gave us a perfect chance to update lots of the blog and for Matt to back up his iTunes which he had been wanting to do for a while. We were all very glad when, at 7am, cafes and restaurants began to open so we could get breakfast and at 9am we were so busy trying to get Flore onto our bus that the last few hours passed pretty quickly! 

 At 9:30, we made our way outside (into the pouring rain!) to find the bus, meet our driver and fellow travellers and begin our New Zealand adventure! Luckily, at the last minute, there was a space on the bus so after all her frantic phone calls Flore was able to join us, she looked very happy as we cheered her on the bus. So off we set, as a group of 20 to discover the South Island!