Christchurch

November 10^th, 2019

Since I was in the neighborhood, I figured I better at least pop in for an afternoon into NZ’s third most populous city Christchurch (Auckland and Wellington being number 1 and 2) and biggest on the south island.  Unfortunately Christchurch was in the news this year for a terrorist attack on a mosque and an Islamic centre which claimed the lives of 51 people.  It was a lone gunman and I remember being impressed with how the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, handled the situation by not naming the accused thereby robbing of him of any fame he may have been seeking.  I also recall hearing about another devastating event for the city back in 2011 when an earthquake claimed the lives of 185 people.  I was in India at the time and had met a Kiwi couple who were from Christchurch.  Shockingly 115 of those lives lost were in the seven storey Canterbury Television building and it was obviously poorly designed and constructed (the main man supervising the construction had faked his engineering degree!).

A couple pics leaving Hanmer:

Driving into Christchurch proved to be very easy even though it is home to 400,000 people.  I somewhat expected a bit of a downtown core with some tall buildings, but I obviously hadn’t done my research.  Even prior to the earthquake the tallest building was, and still is only 23 storeys high.  However a stunning 36 out of its50 tallest have been demolished during or after the earthquake!

My first stop was to see the statue of Robert F. Scott, a British Royal Naval officer who was in the race to be the first to the south pole.  Sadly, he and some of his two of his crew succumbed to the elements on their return and they had reached the pole 33 days after Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had been the first to claim the prize.  The statue was carved by his wife and it fell over during the 2011 earthquake but has since been repaired.  It is located by the Avon River which flows through town which is quite lovely as there were even a few kayakers on it as I crossed a bridge nearby.

Robert F. Scott's statue:

The River Avon:

A war memorial bridge:

A streetcar, I don't think it was named Desire.

Many older buildings are still being propped up.

Checking the super helpful CamperMate app for things to do nearby, I saw that there was a museum about the 2011 disaster fittingly called “Quake” and it was only a handful of blocks away so I went to check it out.  I thought it was an alright exhibit, nothing earth shattering though…oh, is that too soon?!?

The spire from Christchurch Cathedral:

Christchurch Cathedral, still standing there with a gaping hole.  The pigeons are happy about it.

I hopped back in Betty 2.0 and headed on a circuitous route out of town along some of the coast and passed through the harbour town of Lyttleton, where Scott and other expeditions to the Antarctic had stopped.  It was raining so I didn’t stop and continued to Diamond Harbour for my next freedom camping spot where I ended up staying for a couple of nights due to the inclement weather.  Apart from windy days, it was the first real spell of bad weather since I’ve been here…can’t complain.