We had a great apartment in the Hotel Gary had suggested, separate bedrooms, an expansive lounge area and all for the price of a normal twin bedded room. Clearly Christchurch was hurting from the Earthquake. In fact the next door apartment to ours contained the "Temporary" Japanese Embassy, sign which demonstrates how good the accommodation was. We had arranged to meet> Gary Browning and his wife Sally that evening and they first took us to a Pub called Pomeroy's which served some excellent ales, met some crazy people before heading off to a superb Restaurant and meal together. We had a great evening before going back to our posh accommodation. After a great night's sleep followed by 3 hearty breakfast's we decided to do a little more touring of the South Island and head for a place called Hanmer Springs which was often referred to, as a good place to visit. We left Christchurch mid morning and picked up the boring continuation of the road from Oamaru to the north of the Island, which presumably then involves a Ferry to cross into Wellington, the Capital of NZ on the southern tip of the North Island. After about 1/2 an hour on the boring road we saw a sign for a Winery and decided to stop and have a look around. After all we were now approaching the famous Wine growing area of Marlborough. In fact, had the Winery St Clair which produces a lot of the white Wine Melanie and I drink in England, not been so far away, a visit to them would have been nice. Nevertheless we stopped at this one, well advertised for once, and had a look around. The main building was like a very posh Golf Club and the immediate grounds were really lovely. We stayed a while and had a cup of coffee. Then back on the road to find Hanmer Springs, which meant turning off the main boring road, but having done so it once again became a delight to drive, both from a scenic and almost traffic free perspectives. Although we were anxious to get there because of the Wales v Australia play off match, ample time had been left to find a Hotel for the night and a restaurant or bar for the match. We succeeded with both. Despite Hanmer Springs being a Spa Town, presumably attracting healthy living, everything was with chips again. Quite amazing. Other than being in adjacent rooms, sleeping well and having a brief look around Hanmer Springs, the highlight was the match, which sadly Wales lost. So we decided to head back to Christchurch as we had not seen much of the place the night we met the Browning's. It was Trumps turn to drive and he was keen to use his relatively new found "manual" gearbox feature. After all the bollockings he had been giving me about the 100km per hr speed limit in NZ he was cutting across corners of bends and using both sides of the road and reaching 160 kms per hr. Then the best thing that could have happened for me, occurred. On a straight stretch of road and soon after Trumps saying something along the lines of "you never see many police cars on the NZ roads do you?" one approached from the opposite direction. Trumps slowed, but it was not enough! Seconds later the Police car had turned around and was now following us with all lights flashing. Having pulled onto the grass verge with the Police car right behind us, out jumped Trumps looking like a naughty schoolboy and repeating the words " I'm a biker" for some unknown reason. It obviously had no effect on the Policeman who was now standing and putting his hat on. A bit like a Judge when passing a death sentence! Trumps was in shock mode. How could a driver with his self praised ability and experience possibly be up in front of the beak? He stood there like Just William, in short trousers, caught red handed and standing outside the Headmaster's room. His facial expressions were trying to come to terms with his misdemeanour. Of course I was loving every minute of it. Revenge! The Policeman, who I thought was a very nice man just doing his job catching a reckless driver, asked for Trumps Driving License. Trumps duly passed it over and the very nice Policeman asked him "what does the W stand for in your name?" This was my opportunity to interrupt "Wanker" I said. The very nice Policeman, then with a smirk on his face said "I was not able to say that sir". Normally a reasonably substantial fine would have followed the reckless driving behaviour of Trumps but as the Policeman could see we were not Kiwi's and were there for the RWC he proposed Trumps pay NZ$ 80.00 into a Charity, which was very nice of him I thought. I told you he was a nice guy!!! The continuing return drive back to Christchurch with Trumps at the wheel was uneventful and legally within the speed limit, using the Automatic part of the gearbox!
>
> As I have already mentioned, large parts of Christchurch were still cordoned off. The damage was far greater than we had seen on the TV back in England when it was topical. Wooden framed buildings still stood, brick ones had pretty well all gone, and the roads were in a terrible state where they had all buckled and twisted. We had thought about a further thank you to the Waters for their hospitality, especially Larraine as we had not obtained tickets for her for the Rugby. In view of the help Trumps had given her in sorting out her kitchen and Whoppa's first claim to any of her utensils that might be helpful to his DIY or gardening needs, Trumps thought it would be a good idea to get her a nice kitchen knife of her own, to which I readily agreed. Laraine had also suggested she might attempt more cooking in the future,so a new kitchen knife of her own seemed a perfect choice. Therefore there were two pressing purchases to make in Christchurch, with time in NZ running out. A knife for Laraine and a Canterbury Crusader's jersey for Trumps son. On re-entering Christchurch and re-booking the same excellent Hotel we had previously stayed in for the night, shopping was now top of the list. Trumps pulled over somewhere at random, leaving me sitting in the car whilst he sought information for a kitchen shop and a sports shop. He was gone quite a long time but returned full of smiles. The guy he had asked very kindly made several telephone calls, one of which was the Canterbury Crusader's Headquarters and learnt they had a jersey trumps could buy. Not only that but it was just down the road. Such good fortune. We drove down to the HQ, found the person who had been telephoned and bought the jersey. Next stop was the kitchen shop. Again I stayed in the car, presumably to ward off any Traffic cops or Parking Wardens whilst Trumps purchased a knife for Laraine. He took the opportunity to ask the owners of the kitchen shop if they could tell us where a good restaurant was for the evening. They explained most of the good restaurants had been in the centre but were now all closed or knocked down. They suggested however a Burmese restaurant not far out of town. We called them but they were fully booked. That afternoon we took a drive to the coast at a place called New Brighton. It was like a ghost town. The only people around were on the pier, fishing. One had caught a huge Ray, the others next to nothing. Leaving the coast and returning to our Hotel we could see just how much damage had been done to the roads, so the damage to buildings must have been immense. That evening we found a Teriyaki Restaurant within walking distance of our Hotel and had a splendid meal there, without chips! But also without veg!
>
> The following day we had to return the car to Britz and fly back to AKL for the Final, AB's v France. Who were we going to support? The time we had spent in Christchurch was very revealing. Apparently during our last few hours in the place an aftershock had occurred registering 5.5 on the Richter Scale. Neither of us noticed it though, we were either asleep or pissed I suppose. We learnt that following the Earthquake many people left Christchurch. The first to go were the wealthy people that could afford to take the decision, Doctors, Lawyers, Dentists, Bankers etc. They could afford to leave behind their houses and buy something somewhere else. Most others were not in the same fortunate situation but the same concern affected them all. Do we want to continue living in Christchurch which could have the recurrence of a major Earthquake again at any time? It is a well known fault line on pressurised tectonic plates. Just recently, whilst I have been writing these notes, there was a 5.8 aftershock. Other information we learnt whilst there, yet kept from wide publicity it seems, are events not normally associated with NZ. For example, when the Earthquake first struck a substantial part of Christchurch Centre was closed to everybody. Business owners were not even allowed to go to their own premises. Specialists were brought in to decide which buildings were sufficiently badly damaged that they had to be demolished. Only the Police, Army and some Security Guards were allowed into the cordoned off areas presumably to enforce the no go zones. According to one story, once a building had been identified for demolition, a Contractor was brought in to conduct the work. The security people were on hand to ensure nobody, even the demolition Contractors, entered the buildings because of the risks of collapse. One of the buildings identified was a Jewellers. Apparently the chosen Demolition Contractor knocked down the building and had all the rubble removed by his own vehicles to his business premises. He then sifted through the entire remains and kept all the Diamonds, Watches, Ear Rings, Necklaces etc for himself, quite legally. We also learnt that every Till in all the stores had been emptied, Safes cracked open and emptied and any items of value, TV's Audio Systems, Clothes, Footwear etc had all been removed somehow. The people with access to the areas, Police, Army and Security Guards being the most likely source of the thefts. Very unlike ones perception of NZ.
>
> An uneventful flight back to AKL, unlike the outward journey, when Trumps found himself sitting next to a long haul Pilot that befriended him. Trumps having had a Pilot's Licence himself had much in common to chat to him about, but once this guy mentioned his health, things became a bit intense. The guy even invited us to join him for Dinner the evening we had arrived. All very strange. Perhaps he was gay, and we know how attractive Trumps is to them. Despite Whoppa insisting he take us and collect us from the airport, we declined on the basis he had to be at work and by now we were so adept at using the buses and the Airport Express it did not make much sense. We returned to 292 for the last couple of days before going onto Argentina. One lunchtime we decided to take the bus a short distance into St Helier, which is quite a small place. Noticing an eatery called Annabelle's we decided to give it a try. Sitting outside were a couple of characters supping beers, one of which was wearing an XXXL England supporters jersey. Big fat git I thought, as we passed him in search of a table inside. Towards the end of our meal this big fat git passed our table, presumably to pay the bill or visit the loo. I commented how disappointing England had been which started a conversation. I asked him where he came from and he told me, Buckinghamshire. He then asked where I came from to which I replied, Kent. Which Club did you play for in Kent he asked. I told him Vigo and Maidstone. Then, so that everybody in the restaurant could hear he bellowed out "I have slept with this man". Amazingly he had also played for Maidstone for a couple of years whilst sadly, unsuccessfully trying to expand his business in Kent and we had been on tour together. What a small World.
>
> Time was drawing to a close with RWC 2011. Obviously we watched the Final in which most people thought the AB's were lucky to win. In my opinion for what it is worth, France were the better side on the night but the AB's had been the better side throughout the tournament and therefore deserved the win. Another justification for the AB's win, was the incredible pressure France placed on them for most of the second half, yet the AB's were able to withstand it without giving away a Penalty which would have meant almost certain defeat. A fantastic defence for such a long time. It could be argued however the Ref would have been under extreme pressure, to award a Penalty for anything other than a blatant infringement! Lucky AB's back row, especially Richie McCaw.
>
> With only a little amount of time left in AKL, courtesy of Mr and Mrs Waters wonderful hospitality, they organised a farewell Dinner for us. It was an absolute delight. Laraine's new knife was working already! Fresh veg from the garden Greenhouse. From the photograph of the spring veggies in the Greenhouse you can tell how "vertically challenged" Whoppa is because he needs step ladders to pick their Tomatoes!!!! The meal contained some Green Lip Mussels, a speciality of NZ and Whopps can be seen slaving away in the kitchen under the keen eye of Laraine preparing them. Trumps did not like them because they were too big. Cut them in half then, was my suggestion. We had lots of goodbye's and thank yous to this fantastic couple and prepared ourselves for the tough journey from New Zealand to Argentina. A journey of about 24 hours yet we arrive, via Santiago in Chile, before we
> left AKL as far as the watch is concerned. What a journey.
> ---------------------
>
> ARGENTINA 25TH TO 29TH OCTOBER
>
> Over the years' I have been to Buenos Aires a number of times and always loved it. During those times I had met a fellow with whom I traded during my working life, a Mr Luis Moore. A Business man and great Rugby man. He had confirmed he would meet us at the airport on our arrival. Having arrived Buenos Aires on time, gone through the Customs and Baggage Control, I looked around for Luis. He was nowhere to be seen. What a bollocks after such a long trip and I did not have his mobile number despite asking for it many times. I later found out that he either does not have a mobile phone or he never switches it on! Oh well, this is Argentina and Latin. He arrived after about half an hour and drove us to the Hotel we had booked. It seemed as our odyssey progressed the quality of the rooms dramatically worsened. This Hotel was not very good and the room even worse. It was however near one end of the Buenos Aires Sube (underground, metro) which gave us easy access to everywhere in BA. Luis dropped us off and told us that he would be meeting us a little later for a meal. He wanted to take us to a special Argentinian Restaurant that specialised in meat, as pretty well all Argentinian restaurants do, but this one specialised in Pork. It is well known that the Argentinian diet is predominantly meat. Luis turned up that evening together with his Son, Tomas. Luis had sent an e-mail to me, requesting I buy an AB jersey for his Son, which we had achieved but we did not have it with us that particular evening as we were not expecting Tomas to join us, although we were pleased he had. He is a delightful young man. It was a proper, but small size AB jersey, not a RWC cheaper imitation. The meal was fantastic and we caught up with all that had been going on in the Moore family since I had last seen them. No consideration however for the fact we had just flown half way around the World and were pooped, but after a couple of beers and some wine we recovered a little. We saw out the evening, helped by the splendid fayre before Luis returned us to the Hotel for what we hoped would be a good night's sleep. Before he left us, he asked us to be in his office the following morning for another get together and a surprise.
>
> Morning arrived, breakfast followed but we were both still full of Pork, however we made it out of the Hotel and wandered along the busy street until we reached the Sube. The Sube took us into BA central in about 30 mins and we surfaced quite close to Luis's office but knowing which direction to walk in, posed a problem. This way, says Trumps who was in charge of the map. Again!! After a short distance I felt hesitant for some reason or other and asked to see the map. Perhaps it was the history of Trumps and maps on this trip! Not only having rare possession of the map but I am able to speak a little Spanish and I asked a guy for the direction we should be going in to find Rue Venezuela. Going back the way we had come under the Trumps shit map reading skills and making a simple right turn we soon found Rue Venezuela and Luis's office. We were invited in, given a cup of coffee and shown around. His office is in a wonderful spot very close to the City centre. After our coffee he asked us to join him and pick up his car as he was going to take us to a surprise place. We had been travelling for about an hour when he pulled off the road and parked outside a small Deli, still none the wiser for our destination. Luis had purchased a number of Argentinian food delights, some beer and some wine. Where the hell were we going we thought? After about another 10 to 15 minutes in the car we arrived at a very lovely area sprinkled with some splendid Villas set in their own fairly extensive lands. One of which belonged to Luis and we were there to enjoy the place and have a picnic Lunch. It was fantastic and he showed us an amazing game which involves throwing what can only be described as "fat coins" at a table on top of a box. There are several holes for the fat coins to fall into and needless to say the more difficult the holes are, the more you are rewarded with a bigger score. Trumps was very impressed with this new found grown up toy. Driving out of BA to their Villa, had indeed been a great surprise and we learnt that Luis and his wife, Leticia spend most weekends there, but Tomas is not so keen as he does not have an Internet connection and I think it is without TV. In one of the rooms, Luis had stored all his old Rugby Jersey's and amongst them was the Jersey he wore when he was selected to play against the All Blacks. How about that! The Moore family kept horses at their Villa and it was very evident they spent a lot of time there in the summer which must be idyllic.The journey back was fairly uneventful, although we did visit a Railway Station, built umpteen years ago and still has a couple of trains per day calling. Luis is a Train mad enthusiast and when we returned to BA he took us to a magnificent Railway Station in the centre of BA to show us. He then insisted on taking a Sube journey but on the line that still has "wooden carriages" as it's stock. They were built around 100 years ago in Belgium. Quite amazingly, 93 of the original 120 carriages are still in use today. That evening after a very full day we found a local place for Dinner and retired quite early, having upgraded our rooms to something of a sensible size for a mere US$5 each per night.
>
> The next day we repeated our Sube trip to downtown and spent about 3 hours on a sightseeing bus which took us all around the main places of interest in BA. Very informative it was too. Luis took us to a superb Restaurant for Lunch which was just around the corner from his office. The "Ladies and Gents" doors are a bit of class! After Lunch we returned to our Hotel where we were invited to meet Luis, Leticia and Tomas back at our Hotel in order to go out for Dinner that evening. As it happens Tomas did not make it so we were not able to present him with his AB jersey, instead we gave it to Leticia to give to him. Again an excellent meal but we had not seen a vegetable for days by now. Just meat, meat, meat. Despite our assurances that we would be able to get back to the Airport ourselves the following day, Luis insisted on collecting us from the Hotel and taking us to the Airport and showing us some places of interest on the way. Leticia and Tomas (now wearing his fab AB jersey and having thanked us enormously) also joined us, which turned into being a drive around BA and then onto the Airport for our trip to Rio. Not content with their astonishing hospitality up to that moment in time, they insisted on having a coffee with us at the airport whilst we waited to check in. Tomas managed to negotiate a McDonalds and chips for himself with all the extras!!!!!! During coffee they also bought us many, many wonderful gift items as a reminder of our trip to Buenos Aires. The only disappointment as far as I was concerned related to not having enough time to visit the "Tango Bars" area of BA which is World unique. It was more of a disappointment for Trumps than me because I had been there on previous occasions with Melanie and some Doctors from NZ and Santiago and the experience is extraordinarily pleasing, both from the atmosphere and the section of the City in which it exists. Definitely World unique.
>
> -----------------------------
>
> BRAZIL 29TH OCTOBER TO 1ST NOVEMBER
>
> I was not sure what to expect in Rio. The Hotel we had booked was the only one to decline arranging airport collections and returns. And this attitude probably set the scene really, because the Hotel was shabby, despite it's outward appearance. Upon reflection, like nearly everything else in Rio,
> there is the shiny outward appearance but very little behind it to support the first impression. Except the beach, which is quite amazing! But the high rise Hotels all along the beach side leave a little to be desired in my opinion. At the weekends even the road adjacent to the beach is closed to traffic so that all the oddballs on their roller skates, skate boards and the like sporting their latest hair fashions, tattoos, minuscule bikinis, shiny new roller blades, stick thin bodies etc; have much more space to show off. Some of it was very sad to see in my opinion. This was our last stop before getting home to England and I have to say I was getting a bit weary of sightseeing and local travel in taxis, tuc,tuc's, buses, subways and traffic in general which, again was a nightmare in Rio. Parking is also a problem as the photo shows of a car squeezed between two others. How the driver got out of the car remains a mystery. Conversely, Trumps it would appear was still itching to take in all that Rio had to offer, and first thing in the morning, after a rubbish nights sleep in a poxy hotel room on a lumpy bed, he was off before you could say Jack Robinson. He was going to visit the famous and iconic Jesus statue overlooking Rio and then to Sugar Loaf Mountain on the other side of Rio. I decided to have a quiet day whilst he sped around. As it turns out he did only manage the big statue thingy. If I observed correctly, even he was now beginning to fade.
>
> We did stroll quite a bit. On one occasion we went the length of the beach and back which was no mean feat. This of course built up quite a thirst and we had to find a good watering hole despite the fact we had enjoyed a coconut drink during our walk. Happily we found a bar that sold beers from all over the World and in this establishment it felt more normal than anywhere else. On and around the beach there are odd looking people, probably from all corners of the World. Alcohol and Drug abusers, Beggars and the like appear prolific in the streets behind the glitz of the tourist beach. One Beggar approached us and somebody that we assumed was a local, chased them away. It was not a nice place as far as I was concerned and I was quite disappointed. Crime must be a big problem in Rio because every property we passed had substantial ground floor railings in the front for protection and all apartments and houses are fitted with alarms. Some places even had the first floor levels fitted with security bars. It was not living in a normal environment to my way of thinking, but I suppose if you have the money and you wish to have the street cred of a Rio apartment, then you have to take care of it.
>
On the other hand, like everywhere else, if you know someone to show you and take you around you would undoubtedly go to the nicer places. We did find an outstanding Restaurant. We had bar type seats at the counter which was immediately in front of the cooking range. The menu was fab and so was the food, especially the Tuna tartar. The Rio experience was worth it for that meal alone. We tended to oscillate between our shabby Hotel and various bars and restaurants for the couple of days we spent in Rio, just people watching. Probably being back in England was playing on our minds.
>
> The only thing I can add, is that it was a real pleasure to spend 6 weeks with Trumps doing all the things we did. There is not one moment of it I regret.
>
Mike Anderson