I arrived in Christchurch New Zealand at 12.30 a.m. 28th February 2012, It took about an hour to clear immigration, I thought there would be no trouble getting into an hotel near the airport. I had not taken into account the earthquake of February 2011 and the 700 aftershocks they have had since, most of which have been minor but some still causing further damage, the most recent 2 days prior to my arrival. It is estimated that 3,000 hotel beds have been lost and the hotels left are currently full of technicians and construction workers involved in the repair of roads and the rebuilding or removal of buildings too bad to reconstruct. ( It was announced today that it has been decided that the cathedral is too badly damaged and will be demolished). I wonder how badly damaged the bells were, they fell to the ground from the top of the tower. It would be good if they could re-hang them, maybe in a purpose built tower like the one in Perth Australia.
Thanks to a friendly taxi driver I eventually found a bed. I could see some of the damage whilst looking for a hotel but I intend to visit Christchurch at the end of my trip, I will take photographs then.
It took most of the next morning to get my camper van sorted. In the afternoon I drove to Akaroa, a beautiful little harbour town on the Banks Peninsula, This was, many millions of years ago a volcanic island, which is now attached to the mainland. The lowlands between the Island and the mainland has over the millennia filled up with silt produced by glacier erosion washed down the rivers forming a plain on which Christchurch was built. This was why most of the damage in Christchurch was caused through liquefaction where the ground under the city turned to a form of quicksand during the quake.
The British only just beat the French to this location and there is still a lot for French influence.
This could well be a village in Cornwall.
The local police station. ( note the French influence ).
The main street, Rue Lavaud.
A local church.
The general store, notice the dip in the road on the opposite junction, this is typical quake road damage, some roads are like roller coasters.
A really nice little coffee shop on the harbour wall run by 2 French girls. Really good coffee and carrot cake.
Reading the location on this sign I realised that I was almost on the opposite side of the world, only 7 deg. from the international date line and 7 deg. difference in latitude. 44 deg. south, I think Greenwich is 51 deg. north.
Totally different from Brisbane which is 25 deg. south where I have spent most of the last 4 months, . Here we get long twilight evenings like the U.K.
It seems odd that we are 13 hours ahead of GMT, when the maximum can only be 12, this must be something to do with daylight saving!
There are some nice properties here.
There are also some a little different.
On my way back I spotted this very interesting sign, outside of a wine bar, it was draught and excellent.
The next morning I took a trip with the rural postman, he delivers to all the outlaying areas on the peninsula, It is his own business, he is a contractor and he can take up to 8 passengers in his van, there were only 4 of us that day, we started at 9 a.m. and got back at 3 p.m. It was a very good way to sight see, unfortunately it was raining first thing but it did brighten up later.
Note Victoria Regina on the post box.
This is a Russian Orthodox Church, built by a local Russian family it is an exact replica of an original.
This was the path from the town back up to the camp site, there were 116 steps, it took me about 45 mins. to walk back up. Stopping regularly to recover my breath. Fortunately I used my charm on the landlady in the pub where I ate in the evenings and she drove me home.
No comments:
Post a Comment