Bearing up in Christchurch

As I mentioned on the way to Christchurch I went to a Lord of the Rings location. In fact it was where they placed the Rohan city Edoras. This was on a rather long stretch of gravel road. I was a bit worried about going along it as on previous gravel roads (around new years) something on my van had developed a serious grinding/screeching sound. Yes it sounded bad, but after a while of crawling along not sure what to do and randomly testing the breaks it went away. Unfortunately even the most modern cars don’t have self healing so I knew that I would have to get it sorted out eventually. Christchurch was the place. Partly because it’s a city which should offer a good choice in garages and partly because I’d noticed that there was a mild rumbling sound creeping into the normal driving experience which had me worried. My initial thought was that it was simply a wheel bearing, but steering didn’t seem to have an effect of the sound as I would expect with a wheel bearing problem (me with my mastery of mechanics and all).
Unfortunately New Years seems to be a much more substatial holiday here in NZ than it is in the UK so I had to wait around until Tuesday 6th (four days) before I could get if fixed. First off I found a place by the road on a windy stretch out from Christchurch with a scenic view of Lyttelton harbour – a perfect quiet spot I thought.
No such luck – it turns out that this was the Christchurch equivalent of makeout point. Loads of cars coming and going late into the night. Despite this I stayed there the next night too. I had actually managed to get a decent amount of sleep because staying up late, or at least staying up late and staying out only seems to happen in the largest most touristy towns in NZ. I was woken at about 5am by a car arriving and someone explaining some history or something.
This could have been annoying but I decided to make the most of it and take some dawn pictures :




However the next night I stayed in a Campsite closer to town.