Day 53 – Lake Tekapo to Christchurch.

We were told to go on the same buses as yesterday just to make life a bit easier for the drivers. Our bus left just gone 9.30am and stopped just outside the Church I went to see yesterday for a photo opportunity. It wasn’t really much of one as the sun was in the wrong place and was now covered by 60 or so people from the bus so you couldn’t really get a good photo of it, which made me quite happy I made the effort to go and see it yesterday.

Our next and only stop before arriving in Christchurch was in Geraldine. This place holds the Guinness world record for the largest knitted jumper, or something like that. I wasn’t really impressed, I think I’ve been more impressed by all the ‘big’ things in Australia. If you don’t know what I’m talking about just google it and you’ll find out.

On arrival we checked into the YMCA, you could already see that cracks had been filled in on the outside of the building because of the earthquake that happened here 3 years ago. Christchurch was somewhere I really wanted to visit but I knew it was going to be a bit of an odd place especially after what’s happened. For those that don’t know on the 22^nd February 2011 at around 4am an earthquake with a 6.3 magnitude struck Christchurch. In a small way it was lucky it was so early as it meant most areas were quiet, resulting in only 185 deaths, whereas if it was during the day or at a peak time more lives could have been lost.

The best way to see this place is by using your feet, so I went on a walk and my first place which was only about 10minutes down the road was to see the Re:Start shopping area. This is on Cashel Street and used to be the shopping precinct but was heavily destroyed in the earthquake and so they’ve created a new shopping area using shipping containers. It looked pretty cool and it such an inventive way to quickly start businesses back up again and create somewhere that people will want to visit. I stopped in a café and purchased some carrot cake (something I never would have done before this trip, I know, such a changed person!) it was massive and so delicious! It was mostly just so I had an excuse to chill in their garden and use the free Re:Start wifi.

I left here and walked down the road to see the Christchurch Cathedral, this is mostly blocked off but they have created viewing areas. This building was once such an iconic area and now it’s just crazy to see how much damage one earthquake can cause. I know it’s a big thing and I remember seeing photos at the time but still, being here and 3 years on, you really see how much it affected this place. On buildings all over the place you see they have spray painted a date and CLR to say they’ve checked the building on this date and it’s clear, no one has been left inside.

The ground the cathedral is situated on is still unsafe so they’ve made a Cardboard Cathedral just down the road. Yes, this building is mostly made of cardboard but also local wood, steel and a polycarbonate roof. It’s designed to last about 50 years and is has been named the Transitional Cathedral as one day they will be allowed to rebuild on the old site. The structure is rather impressive and can seat up to 700 people!

The next block along from here is a memorial called ‘185 empty chairs’, as you may have guessed this is 185 chairs that have been painted white to represent each person who lost their life in the earthquake. Looking down the list of names there were a lot of Chinese people who were similar ages, which I thought, was quite odd and discovered why after we walked over the road. On the opposite corner was the CTV (Canterbury TV) building but it also housed the Kings Educational Language School, meaning 115 of the deaths were in this building. They’re created the space into a small park until one day they will build a new place on here. I’ve found throughout the city they’ve tried to create green spaces where buildings were until they can rebuild on the land where buildings once were.

That evening I went out to a bar called Smash Palace that they have created out of old buses and other random items on an old parking lot. It was a really quirky thing but an easy way to get the old business back up and running again. I really like Christchurch and they’ve made the best of a terrible situation.