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Published: November 5th 2012
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185 Empty Chairs
A chair for each person that lost their lives in the February quake. After 9 months of labour camp I think it’s about time to make a dent in the South Island. But first a few words on Christchurch, a city vastly knobbed by earthquakes. I had no idea of the impact of the quakes until I arrived here, walking around for a couple of hours upon arrival was enough to grasp that the place was pretty fucked. And the fact that I was due to spend a bulk of time here working left me a little depressed, not half as depressed I should imagine as some of the families that lost loved ones here and of whoms properties have all but been destroyed. I wondered if this was really going to be the place for me.
But I remained, deciding to buckle down and do what the majority of the locals here have done since the devastating quakes, get on with it. It’s a weird concept to apprehend, having a city of some 380,000 people and yet it is completely devoid of a city centre. The whole area being designated a red zone and off limits to the public whilst it gets dismantled and put back together again. Properties all over town
have been effected, suburbs to the east of the city particularly so, the New Brighton area where some 10,000 homes are due to be demolished. A legitimate ghost town. It would take some getting used to.
But in time I would learn that there is more to Christchurch than meets the eye upon that first initial impression. There is no denying that the city has a strange identity, commerce and leisure pursuits now lying in the suburbs, while what’s hot and what’s not is an interchangeable affair as the city progresses into a sort of rebirth. There is a wide stem of innovative ideas to have hit the city post-earthquake, pop up bars, container malls, street art and apparently there’s a cardboard cathedral in the works. All essential prospects to keeping a city on its feet. And like any city it has its annoyances, heavy traffic, McDonalds, knob-heads, junkies, freaks and drunks, all the things you need to make a city a city.
I’ve felt a number of small quakes since being here, but thankfully nothing to abrasive, I felt quite a few when I was based in Tokyo several years back and also oddly a couple in
England, so I’m no stranger to the feeling, it just becomes part of your everyday life here in Christchurch and thus something you just get used to.
Points of interest in the city would be the container mall, which does exactly as it says on the tin, it consists of a series of cargo freight containers that have been re-established as a number of various different shopping outlets. Haguley Park and the botanical gardens also worth a visit, Haguley Park covering some 1.61km2 offering a number of recreational facilities, football pitches, tennis courts and a golf course, I believe a cricket stadium is currently in the works. And the 50 or so acres of the botanical gardens are nice for an afternoon’s walk and maybe a picnic or a little read. Just off Madras Street close to where I have been living you should pay a visit to the 185 Empty Chairs exhibit, each chair existing in the memory of each live that was lost in the February 2011 earthquake.
Now the beauty with New Zealand is that you’re never too far away from something scenic, on the outskirts of town there are a number of treks on
offer in the port hills offering good views over Christchurch, and you can hit up the beach for some surfing in Sumner, a sleepy kind of seaside suburb, allegedly theres a nudist beach nereby as well so if you want to scope out some wrinkly balls then I guess the option is there. Extend your trip a little further onto the scenic Akaroa in the Banks Peninsula or over to the mountains for a snow fight, Mt. Hutt for some skiing/ snowboarding and of course some more trekking, plenty of trekking and fun in the snow to be had around these parts.
So for Christchurch the show must go on, and invariably it does, a lot of good folk based here working their arses off to make sure the city prevails through its stint of misfortune. As long as that fighting spirit holds up then there is no reason why the city can’t flourish again.
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