In Akaroa we felt several of Christchurch's earthquakes and as we left there on Monday we heard the news that they had just suffered the 10,000th - don't listen to the weasel word "aftershock" - they are all earthquakes.
We drove south for more than 400 kms to Alexandra, where the whole idea of the Big Walk started. Here we suddenly launched into our usual program of walking more than 25 kms a day, at route-march pace, finishing before lunch. It was particularly hard this time because, due to plantar fasciitis, I have not done much walking at all in the past 12 months. The first two days were gruelling, but it has become a little easier now.
Nicola sent me the photograph this morning to remind me of what we are missing in Europe. Of course it is summer here, although not a particularly hot one. In the meantime Europe seems to have been hit by especially severe weather. The reports on tv and in the newspapers here have been of temperatures in Central Europe, down to minus 20 or 30 something. We have no idea what is happening at home, but Nicola's picture is of my grandson Alessandro in their garden in Rome. She says she has never seen so much snow there (she has lived in Rome for more than half her life) and it was still falling as she "spoke".
We don't come to New Zealand every year to escape the winters in Europe, but it seems an increasingly pleasing byproduct of our travels.
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