So anyway, today we move onto the second largest city in New Zealand - Christchurch, with a population of just 385,000 people compared with Auckland's 1.5million.
We woke up to the sun bouncing off the lake, and set off through Burkes Pass which sits at a higher altitude than Tekapo known for its astronomy. Burkes pass is known for its huge snow drifts in the winter (thank god it's autumn) then it was on to the Canterbury plains.
The surrounding mountain range grows up to 10-20mm taller a year. The drift and debris from that push gets spread out over the Canterbury plains. Here, the river bed was extremely wide until the white man put flood banks in so it can't deposit rock and metal everywhere like it used to, leaving it almost dry. The plains used to be a colourful and diverse farming area, but they used to plough and topsoil would disappear with the high winds and pollute Christchurch. Now with animal farming and dairy there is less of that, as grass grows and doesn't leave unused topsoil. Although NZ only holds 2% of the world's dairy produce. Instead though, animal waste filters through to pollute water sources - so there's no winning game really! 4.5million cows, 30million sheep - that's a lot of unwanted waste!
Although interestingly, NZ are so short of farm workers, they are pulling in people from the Phillipines and all of their families to live as NZ citizens, in purpose built farm worker outhouses to help the industry survive. The next largest town south of Christchurch is Ashburton which houses the machinery and warehouses for all of the local dairy produce and farming.
After a quick stop at Geraldine for breakfast, we continued on to Christchurch which is undergoing a 40billion dollar reparation and rebuild process after the 2011 earthquake. In sept 2010 there was an earthquake measuring at 7.1 that destroyed much of the foundation of the city. On Boxing Day there was another earthquake a little further south. In February 2011 at 12:45, in a city on one of the busiest days for shopping, 6.3 measuring 3km deep earthquake ruptured in Port Hills causing 185 people to die. Half of Christchurch was untouched but 2km down the road in Christchurch and on to Brighton the damage was huge. 5000 buildings, 10,000 houses destroyed. Another 10,000 liveable but needed repairing and reinforcing. Most of the tall buildings in the main city stayed standing, although their foundations were destroyed so one by one they have had to have been pulled down. There has been huge lint refraction, where sediment rises from the floor and sets like concrete. There's now a 6 storey height restriction on every building. They have pulled most of the destroyed buildings down but are repairing under the ground before they can build up.
Even the cathedral which once stood at the centre was destroyed.
There are a limited amount of places to stay in Christchurch for the same reason but I had a two hour drive to anticipate what to expect. And I saw the strangest thing - a dual carriageway - in New Zealand. After a month of single lane highways and one way bridges. Incredible.
Christchurch is built on the Australian plate where it meets the Pacific plate on a volcano. There are two forced harbours where they meet. Christchurch is also known as Britain of the South - with settlers voyaging for three months to their new homes.
Stoats and possums are pests and it's even illegal to own them as pets. There are traps all over NZ in attempt to rid the country of pests and allow Kiwi birds (who nest on the ground) and other native animals and birds the chance to survive.
Christchurch, should have been built on the site where modern day Rolleston is but an Englishman came along and said the city was too far away from water source and they moved closer to the water. With the site being on a swamp, ships struggled to enter and bring supplies and the first settlers almost starved to death. If it wasn't for the Maori people, who looked after them, they would have died.
Rolleston moved down the road and is actually growing well, especially after the 2011 earthquake. It's close to becoming a city - it even has traffic lights! The city was built by immigrants from all over the world to the English plans. There is a church in central Christchurch that the religious folk want to tear down and build a new one. The non-religious people want to keep it as part of the heritage of the city. One of the oldest buildings in the city.
A stroll around the city was more like strolling around a ghost town. The one thing I admired the mod though is how everyone is committed to the rebuild and even amidst all of the destruction they are set on keeping the life within the walls.
They also had a solution to rebuilding the old neo-gothic cathedral - they made a cardboard one. Along with Japanese emergency architect Shigeru Ban. Ban had already completed a similar project in Kobe after an earthquake there. This time the building was made with local wood, steel and cardboard as well as a strong polycarbonate roof. It seats 700 people, holds more than 750 services a year and is build to 130% of the new NZ earthquake code. It's designed to last at least 50yrs - by then they might have made a decision on what to do with the old one!
After a stroll around the cathedral we headed to the makeshift mall, made from shipping containers where I had to restrain myself from buying unnecessary pairs of leggings and some poy!
Quite a cool little place but nothing but souvenirs and coffee on sale. So we turned around and headed back to our YMCA for some dinner before heading out.
The evening brought us a twenty minute walk to the nearest bar, where we were met with $10 a pint!! Mental! So we begrudgingly drank our overpriced pints in a deserted bar in Christchurch. We did meet a few nice guys from back home, two of whom became childhood friends through sheep farming. It was interesting to actually meet some highland farmers who are my age, and hear that they really are committed to taking over the family farms!
It was quite an early night as we headed back to bed through the streets of a ghostly christchurch. We passed the only nightclub which was busy serving its only two guests. It's hard to think it's taken the city this long to pull down all of the buildings that were harmed in the earthquake four years ago. Let's hope it's a quicker regeneration from here onwards!
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