Escaping the floods

As I'm sure you have all heard, the floods got extremely bad when we got to Brisbane so we thought it was safest to leave before we got stranded in a country where we don't know anyone to help. Transport to the city from the airport was cut off and no one was sure we would make it to gold coast. We had already cancelled plans to noosea but we are sad to miss Byron bay and the Steve Erwin zoo. Also sad that I saved surfing for the these few cities. However even if we made it to gold coast, it was constantly raining. They are calling these floods an "inland tsunami" which the worst one in history - lucky us! So now you're wondering - where are we?!

We ended up getting a flight from Brisbane to Christchurch, which is a city in the south island of new Zealand. Our original flight was from gold coast to Auckland so it was very kind to completely change our flight to get us out of there before there was the risk of airport closure as was the case in other flooded cities. We are staying at the novotel Christchurch cathedral square which I'd highly recommend! Super cute hotel with a lot of character and very central! They have an iMac station with complimentary internet for guests which I love! We didn't do a whole lot today except explore, went to the art gallery to see a sculptures exhibit and ate. After much deliberation, we are taking a tour tomorrow and then staying in queenstown for a few days before flying to Auckland to start our original itinerary! Thank you meena for sending me south island info in my panic! We really don't know much about the south island and only brought a guide book for north island so it should be interesting!

Hope everyone is doing well at home!