An early start – we met and had breakfast downstairs at about 5.30, and then finished packing, in time to catch a 6.00 shuttle bus to the airport. After checking in (exit row seats), we found somewhere to sit in Sydney airport, and catch up on emails. Eventually we boarded the plane to Christchurch.

I slept for a lot of the flight. Again, quite unusual, but not unexpected! Flying over the snow-capped mountains was beautiful. Every other time we had flown in it was dark so I hadn’t had the opportunity to see this before.

After immigration, we met Mark Cini, who took us out to the stadium in Hornby. Then it was all systems go. I started configuring the touch screens, and while doing the lengthy installation process, we went out for some lunch, and planned our afternoon. I got everything finished in time for the night to start.

We then went to Iversen Terrace (the stadium in Christchurch) to check on a couple of things there, and prepare for the updating we would have to do the next day. This was quite a drive. It is near the heart of Christchurch, so we were able to see the after effects of the earthquake. The devastation started to hit – you just can’t comprehend it until you see it. Just driving down the road was like surfing a wave – it was so un-even. Then it was time to check in to our hotel. Clare had had a hard time finding a hotel for us – and we could see why. As we were going down the street, there were 20 or so hotels / motels in a row, all saying No Vacancy. This is how the hotel industry has been, due to the number of workers that come in to Christchurch Monday to Friday to work on the clean-up. We *finally* got to dinner about 8.30. Clare met us at the restaurant (Mark was driving us), and we had a nice meal and catch up.

After dinner, Brett and I took Clare’s car and went to the stadium at Hornby. They had finished games, so we were able to perform the upgrade of Datascore and Sportskeep in peace. By the time we had finished configuring and testing, it was about 1.30am. Having the open bar there helped the time pass! But we were tired, so we grabbed a couple of travellers and went back to the hotel. There we had a sit down and unwind, turned the TV on for a bit, and eventually went to bed.