Christchurch

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After finishing my job with NZSki, I had 5 days before my new job started at Matakauri Lodge. My friend Jayne from Northern Ireland also had some time between jobs. We packed our bags, threw our snowboards in the back of the car, made sure we had our ski passes, and headed to Christchurch. The drive to Christchurch was unbelievable. Our first stop was in Omarama, the only "major" town between Queenstown and Lake Tekapo, about 2 hours from both. We wandered around and found some really bad food to eat (New Zealand roadside food is not the best). We drove through hills and plains, constantly commenting on how we could easily see dinosaurs living in these exact places. If you watch Lord of the Rings, we drove through Pelennor Fields. If you don't watch LOTR, we still drove through Pelennor Fields. Google it.

We passed snowcapped mountains, blue lakes, and salmon farms as we drew closer to Mt. Cook. We turned a corner after driving for 3 hours and the sight of an enormous bright blue lake took my breath away. Lake Pukaki must have some sort of enormous limestone deposit because it is indescribably blue and pristine. There is only one building on the lake that acts as a tourist center. From our end of the lake we could see all of the mountains with Mt. Cook rising up colossally in the middle. Moving forwards on our drive we briefly stopped at Lake Tekapo for gas, which is much more touristy and settled. Beautiful nonetheless. The last part of the drive to Christchurch was brutal because it was a straight line for a couple of hours. The outskirts of Christchurch are pretty heavily settled after the earthquake. A few hours outside of the city I remembered that my friend Mark, who I had met on Gili T, lived in the city! We gave him a call, and he promised to meet us for dinner.

We arrived at our hostel just as it was getting dark. We stayed in the Jailhouse Accommodation, which is exactly what it sounds like. An old jailhouse converted into a hostel. Jayne and I shared a cozy cell outfitted with bunk beds. After getting settled, we walked into the city to meet Mark. We were there a bit early, so we had time to walk around a pop-up shopping mall called Re-Start, made out of shipping containers. Most things were closed, but we peeped into enough windows to realize that most of them were design stores and we definitely wanted to come back. We met Mark under the memorial arch, and he took us on a walk around the city.

My first impression of Christchurch was that everything is under construction. Tons of buildings are covered in scaffolding, and cranes are everywhere. It's also really quiet. After the quake, most people had to leave the city, so people will come in to work, but there's not a lot happening at night.

A quick history of the Christchurch Earthquake. In February of 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck 10km south of Christchurch. The proximity of the quake to the center of the city combined with the aftershocks led to all of the destruction. Most of the time, during an earthquake, the ground will move either horizontally or vertically. This earthquake did both, resulting in liquefaction of the solid ground. Most buildings did exactly what they were designed to do--they held up until everyone could get out. Two office buildings completely collapsed when the earthquake struck in the afternoon, resulting in 185 deaths. After it was all over, 80% of the buildings in the city had to/still need to be demolished. The foundations were too damaged by the liquefaction for the city to easily be rebuilt, which is why 5 years later, there are entire city blocks of parking lots. It's taken ages to rebuild.

We got dinner on one of the few "busy" streets. By normal city standards, this would be nothing. But in Christchurch, this street has a lot of new buildings and some abandoned ones. We had really good pizza at a place called Little Neighborhood and planned our day the next day. The plan was to get up early, meet at the hostel, and drive to Mt. Hutt to ski all day. Mark drove us home, and Jayne and I slept well in our little cell.

The next morning we got up and I looked up the snow report. Mt. Hutt's nickname is Mt. Shut. Which it was. It was crazy windy in Christchurch, and the weather on Mt. Hutt was much worse. Jayne and I went into the city to get breakfast and then met up with Mark. We spent the morning wandering around the city in the daylight, and that's when we really saw the destruction. It was both beautiful and really sad. A 6-story building might look completely normal until you notice a crack in the bricks and the lack of glass in the windows. Then you realize it's been empty for years. Parts of the riverbanks that run through the city are beautiful, and parts have enormous cracks and are falling apart. The craziest thing to see, though, was the cathedral. Right in the middle of the city is an old cathedral that used to be the main attraction in Christchurch. It is mostly still standing, but the entire steeple has crumbled, and most of the facade is gone. It's surrounded by a fence and condemned.

What I really liked about Christchurch is what has come out of the earthquake. After all of this wreckage and destruction has come flashes of color. There are beautiful murals painted on the sides of buildings and small art installations that have popped up everywhere. There are photo exhibits and rainbow benches and colorful statues. It really makes you feel like the city is becoming something again.

The walk around the city took most of the morning, and then we had the afternoon to kill. We got in Mark's car, and he drove us out to the Banks Peninsula, which looks a lot like Ireland. We drove windy roads through green hills and pastures. Some places were so flat you could see all the way out to the ocean. We drove past a toxic lake, which was brown and rough and looked like the opposite of everything else I've seen in New Zealand. It's been taken over by some sort of toxic algae, and only black swans and ducks live there. We stopped for a quick lunch outside of Akaroa before heading back to Christchurch. We met another Irish guy in the hostel (the Irish are everywhere!) who told us about a cheap Middle-Eastern place for dinner down the street. We went and ordered off the menu. He kept putting food in our containers, and we kept saying no. At the end he tried to charge us double what was on the menu. Travel Kate activated! I argued with him that I ordered this dish for this price off the menu and he said he hadn't used that menu in 8 years. Then take it down, mate. Eventually he gave in, and we left with the food he gave us for the price we were planning on paying in the first case. I refuse to get ripped off. We got to the hostel, ate our dinner, said goodbye to Mark, and went to sleep.

We woke up early Monday morning to a snow report that said Mt. Hutt was open! Mark was at work, so he couldn't come with us. We packed up the car, checked out of the hostel, and drove 2 hours to Mt. Hutt. It was rainy and miserable, but we were determined to snowboard. I was wearing my staff shirt from Coronet, so everyone assumed I worked there and we got discounts on coffee as well as free wrist guards! The snow was good, but visibility was poor. We had a few good runs, but it was cold, windy, and rainy. We called it a day pretty early and headed back to Queenstown. We took the scenic route through Fairlie and Geraldine and passed through so much greenery with the mountains on our right. We got into Queenstown in the early evening.

All in all, I loved Christchurch. It gets a bad reputation because there's not a lot happening, but I wouldn't mind living there. I really want to go back in 5 or 10 years to see how much it's changed. It's amazing how a completely westernized city has to be rebuilt from scratch.

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Photos

185 White Chairs
A memorial to the 185 people who died in the 2011 Earthquake

Comments

[AUNT SUE]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Hi Katie: It's bedtime here so I will read this at leisure another time. Just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday, now at least two days late given your location on the other side of the international dateline. I'm off to Northern India for ~ a month at the end of December, teaching English to school children for part of the time and traveling the rest with camera in tow. Hugs and xoxoxoxo, AS

[D MJ Binkley]

Beauty Around Every Corner
Nice