Just recently, it seemed like summer was right around the corner, the clocks went forward so the evenings were lighter and we had temperatures of 18 degrees - it was great to see a bit of sunshine. I even came home from work a few times to find Candi and Sophie standing outside by our new gas BBQ, dinner prepped and ready to go. But then, just as we were getting into the swing of summery things, bang, we seem to have found ourselves right back in the middle of winter. Our overnight temperature has dropped as low as 3 this past week and we’ve had really strong winds, which has meant us having to turn those oil heaters back on and postponing all BBQ cooking for a while.

On Wednesday morning I was in work quite early and managed to keep my cool when we felt the effects of a 5.6 earthquake passing through from its origin near Hamner Springs (South Island). There are more details on the Geonet and NZ news websites:

New Zealand Earthquake Report (Geonet)
Quake felt in Wellington, Christchurch (NZ Herald)
South Island shaken by 5.6 quake (Stuff)

It was only the second quake I have actually felt since we arrived, but this one seemed to go on for quite a long time (I was on the third floor at the time so that may have had something to do with it).  It felt like a kind of slow, rolling motion rather than violent shaking. Certainly an experience, I’m just glad it was minor and there were no serious effects.