Week one, year one, the adventure begins here and here is Christchurch, largest city on the South Island of New Zealand. We flew in from Auckland and people had told us to expect a big difference between the two islands. However at first I couldn't see anything different at all. It was dark. Next morning and we went out for a walk around Christchurch and I could see what was meant. It is a far gentler, far quieter city than Auckland. It is laid out around a river and the streets are all in a grid pattern. As you probably know New Zealand was only settled by Europeans some 180 years ago and so the cities have grown from then. Our time this week was to be spent on the east coast with three days in Christchurch and then, after a days drive, three days in Dunedin.

There is an obvious English feel to many parts of New Zealand. Apart from the fact that they speak English, so many of the places have English names. I think that this has made our time here less spectacular for me than when we will visit other countries. However we will try on this journey, it will be impossible not to equate what we see to what we have already experienced in our lives and, in my case, that covers quite a bit of time. We have both said that we will try and look at each country with fresh eyes but someone in the brain will be a picture, a thought, from the past. My own view of Christchurch was very much how well planned it all was. The streets were so well laid out you could almost think they knew the 21t century would be like this, even if the old trams were still running though now more of a tourist attraction.

There are an enormous number of churches around and indeed the whole centre of the city is built around the cathedral. The main road through the centre curves left and right to circumnavigate the cathedral and the main square is called Cathedral square. There are no real skyscrapers and the whole city sprawls out into a number of suburbs. I hope, when I travel, that some places will give me that certain buzz you feel when you find something, try something, feel something, for the first time. I liked Christchurch but it didn't do it for me. We had been told that our drive south, along the coast road, to Dunedin would be flat and boring but actually I really enjoyed it, which may say more about me than the journey. You see I saw things I wanted to find out about.

The area is called the Canterbury Plain as it is flat. New Zealand also has about 40 million sheep and a fair few of them live here. But across all these flat fields populated by walking jumpers there were hundreds and hundreds of tall hedges. Some not very long, some stretching 200 or 300 metres. Some very thick, some made up more of a line of trees. But I wanted to know why and, as I drove on, my little brain began to think. First thought was they were wind breaks. Flat lands get strong winds and the hedges also seemed to go in a general east/west direction. Then I thought that they could also protect against soil erosion. A strong wind across a flat plain tends to take off the top soil. When we got to Dunedin I actually asked someone and, although I was partly right, there was another reason too and this goes back to my mobile jumpers plus the walking milk bottles. You see the sheep and cattle around here need protection from the snow that can affect these parts. The trees and hedges provide this and, according to my informant, there is a law that says that each farm must have some of these. So, if you drive across the Canterbury Plains one winter, expect to see the sheep sheltering under a hedge.

Once in Dunedin I immediately noticed the difference between this and Christchurch. Dunedin isn't flat. It's bumpy. It also has the most amazing natural harbour I have yet seen anywhere in the world. The city is built right on the end of the inlet but little settlements can be found all the way around on either side. I love the sea and the sight of these houses looking over the harbour made me wonder if all this travelling was good for me and should I really grow up and settle down. When the lady at the Otago Daily Times, who was interviewing us, asked whether this project was a nice way to fund our trip around the world I realised that no it wasn't but the trip was worth it anyway including all the hard work and sometimes the rudeness of people we meet.

We went for a drive around the peninsula and wanted to see the penguins that are there. This journey is about experiences and finding out, not about doing your research and then visiting places. It's spontaneous but the lady at Nature's Wonders couldn't cope with this. She told us if we were serious we would have found out about her and emailed her some days before we arrived and no she would not let us go on a trip with them. I explained that maybe she didn't quite understand what we were doing but she said she did. I understood her too and felt that Nature may well have been wondering too much during certain stages of creation. Not concentrating on the job of creating humanity I felt. Still never mind, we will see them elsewhere.

Apart from that I really liked Dunedin and the surrounding countryside, particularly our ride on the Taieri Gorge Railway. That was a fantastic experience and you can read more about it elsewhere. It is a student town and so pretty lively well into the night. I mean we all know how hard students' work and how important it is for them to relax after this work or in some cases before it or even instead of it. Whatever, the student community makes Dunedin come alive and add that to the natural beauty and friendliness, with one natural exception, and it was a great way to finish our first week.

Here we were, Alan and Richard both quite happily eating away, and me and Joey sitting totally shocked. For the first time in my life I happened to be in the house where there was no salt at all. And if this wouldn't be bad enough I discovered that my dinner was cooked without the salt. I couldn't pretend that this was all right, I was struck. I couldn't believe this had happened to me. Joey couldn't believe that she had just ruined someone's life, or at least dinner, and to avoid further traumas promised to buy some salt the next day.. This made me realize that probably in general people in New Zealand are far more health conscious and a healthy lifestyle promotion is also far more a priority than in Poland for example. My arguments that salt has preserving qualities and is natural doesn't go far with them.

Once I got over it, and I can tell you this dinner could have been so good, we flew to Christchurch, the biggest city of the South Island. It was Saturday night so we decided to go out and see the nightlife. We found a street, called The Strip, where about eight or nine clubs sat next to each other all full of people and with a buzzing atmosphere. I was told by someone that people in Christchurch work hard and play hard. I don't know if this is true but it certainly seemed to me that if they go out they must have an older member of the family accompanying them quite often. At least 3 people who decided to come to us and try to make a conversation started from asking if Rich is perhaps my dad, which didn't take them too far nor with the conversation or anything else they were aiming for.

Rich, very thoughtfully, worried I might be upset by this. You know, people thinking you are so much fun you probably bring your dad along with you. Then we met a young female who decided to introduce herself by interrupting our loud pondering where to go next with, "does it matter. You are a stunner, what does it matter where you go. Yes you are:. She proceeded then to argue with herself, " you are, you are". At this stage Richard usually would say "thank you so much" but she completely destroyed his plans by turning towards him and announcing, "and you, I don't like you. You are not a pretty boy what are you doing with her" she demanded. I remembered a lady in a shop told us the further south we go the more friendly the people are. They were certainly doing their best on Saturday night.

I couldn't believe how much Christchurch, with it's wide streets and plain buildings reminded me of the communist parts of Warsaw where the design had to be practical not eye pleasing. And then there were little decorative wooden houses and numerous elaborate architecture of churches scattered around with the cathedral building towering on the main square. Christchurch like a lot of other New Zealand cities was established for a specific purpose by English enterpreneurs who saw a business in setting up places where they can then send Europeans who would be looking for a new life away from England or Scotland. Christchurch was established as a Canterbury Association (Church of England) settlement while Dunedin, our next destination, was planned as a Scottish Free Church Settlement.

On Tuesday we were invited to one of the primary schools In Christchurch, Waimairi, to give a presentation to the students and the teachers. I rather liked the Principal of the school. Whenever he wanted to speak to shut everybody else up he whistled at the noisy bunch. It worked each time. Unlike in some other parts of the world, New Zealand in general seems to have quite a relaxed attitude to things. Someone once told me that when the English and Scottish came over here they brought their culture and all they liked but they left a lot of "bad" things at home and the class system was one of them. Now there are not many things with which you can insult or upset New Zealanders. Whistle at them, come wearing your ripped jeans to the posh restaurant, go to the lectures on your university barefoot - none of these will be considered even slightly "inappropriate".

But back to our school visit. We liked the school, we thought the students were extremely well behaved and the teachers showed a lot of interest in the project in a creative way. It was also great to discover an e-mail from one of the kids which she wrote to us a couple of hours later when she had time to check the website back at home, saying how much she enjoyed the presentation and how much she likes the project. This is such a satisfying part of what we do and we hope that kids all over the world will feel like they want to write to us, follow us and join in.

On Tuesday we moved on to Dunedin, a little town beautifully situated on the coast. The town is very much student orientated and renowned for a typical student atmosphere and lifestyle. The best proof of it was perhaps the amount of students pubs with beer at half the price you find in Auckland clubs. Most of the clubs were situated very close to the university and rather avoided by the rest of the population. Well, someone wished Richard the best of luck when he asked for the way to one of the student holes.

The next day we were invited to do the Taieri George trip which is one of the great world train journeys. It took us through the Otago plains, high bridges to the gorge where the train was squeezed between the high walls of the Canyon. The views were amazing and we also met a fascinating guy, 84 year old Mr Fox who used to be a reporter for many years and entertained us with some of his stories from the past. That's the best way to find out about history and how life has changed.

I have to say because we stayed in a bed and breakfast there with really nice people and because we discovered a good restaurant run by two really great guys we got sort of stuck there a little bit. We probably never talked as much about the project as there - every morning someone introduced us and the project to one of the visitors because we were always welcomed with "oh, so you are the One World Project guys" and then questioned further. Nice thing is everyone seemed so genuinely interested in the project and we may hook up with a couple of New Zealand guests later when we will be visiting their regions.