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Published: February 22nd 2011
Just as we were publishing this blog today we received word of another earthquake striking Christchurch. It sounds like it was more devastating than the original shaker with severe damage to the downtown area and with people trapped in collapsed churches and office buildings. From early reports the city of Lyttelton which is where we dock also took a direct hit. We are very worried about the area and its beleaguered residents.
When we arrived in Christchurch we saw signs heralding Boxing Day. I was quite confused since this is a traditional English holiday celebrated the day after Christmas. The story is that in September of last year this area of New Zealand was struck by a devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake. There were many aftershocks with the biggest coming on Boxing Day which closed the central city bringing a halt to the planned celebration that day. To prove its resiliency and spirit the city decided to have its delayed party on Feb 13 which coincided with our arrival in town. This most British of cities is a conglomeration of neo-Gothic buildings, a sprawling university, the meandering Avon River and city parks. We saw much evidence of the damage from the
temblor with rubble strewn streets and scaffolding and support buttresses everywhere. The quaint city tram is still operating as are the punts on the Avon but the old stone buildings especially all of the churches seemed especially hard hit. Christchurch faces a long recovery but on this day the town square was filled with music and locals out enjoying a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
We spent Valentine’s Day in Dunedin. When we got off the ship the bus driver told us that this was the nicest day of the year—weather-wise. We actually dock in Port Chalmers and take a shuttle up to town on the road which parallels the silted up Otago Harbour. Dunedin is a wee bit of Scotland complete with a statue of the Scottish poet Robert Burns and the beautifully ornate Dunedin Railway Station. Over 500 hundred passengers took advantage of the free shore excursions offered by Regent which included a six hour train trip through the Taieri Gorge or a boat trip out the harbor to observe the Yellow-Eyed Penguins, dolphins and Albatross colonies. Captain Scala’s wife and two year daughter visited the ship for the day. Mrs Scala, a former cruise ship general manager, is
the airport manager at Invercargill at the southern tip of New Zealand. The Captain proudly showed off his precious daughter. The Valentine’s celebrations seemed pretty quiet this year. I think everyone must be tiring themselves out from all of the touring and are hitting the hay pretty early. We had a lovely dinner in the candlelit French restaurant with new friends and took a few spins around the dance floor.
In each port in New Zealand we noticed that the docklands are lined with piles and piles of logs—logs as far as you can see alongside towering mounds of wood chips. The government decided several years ago to sell most of its interior forests to Asian countries. So today in all the ports there are foreign freighters being piled high with this precious resource alongside big container ships which are off loading cars being imported from Asia. I’m not sure it is a good exchange for the ecology minded Kiwis in their pristine land.
One area untouched by chainsaws and logging trucks is the Fjordland National Park on the west coast of the South Island. We were fortunate to be able to spend a whole day cruising the
A nice shopping street
Untouched by the earthquakesounds and fjords of this magnificent park. We were even more fortunate with the weather. In a place where it rains about 330 days a year, we arrived on the clearest and sunniest day ever. We needed an Ansel Adams to capture the stunning vistas of mountainous sheer cliffs, covered with green rain forests, topped with white glaciers which feed the hundreds of thundering waterfalls in Milford, Doubtful and Dusky Fjords. There are areas in the park that are so remote they have yet to be explored by humans. I have read that Fjordland is a place where poets run out of words and photographers run out of film. This is so true! It was a stunning farewell to New Zealand---the land of the long white cloud.
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