I have left it rather late to say anything about the actual process of moving to Christchurch. It doesn’t seem particularly topical any more, but there was a lot of bad weather, our ferry crossing was cancelled, and there was a good deal of confusion about more or less everything to do with ferries. At one point we even managed to drive on to the wrong ferry entirely, where we got out of the van and wandered around looking confused until a helpful sailor assisted us in accounting for the discrepancy between basic common sense notions of ticketing and load management and the instructions I had been given at the terminal.
In any case, the ten-hour delay meant that we ended up travelling from Picton to Christchurch overnight, instead of through the day. So thanks to Dad for all the driving.