Christchurch: New Zealand's second largest city next to Auckland, was hit hard, both physically and emotionally by the earthquake this past February. The whole city center is cordoned off with gates, warning signs and military personnel. I got off the bus and was walking to my hostel without knowing where the cordoned off areas were but I found out quickly, as I walked through a gate only to be met by a uniformed guard who politely asked "are you lost?" I had the lucky fortune of good weather and very helpful locals the day I was in Christchurch to be able to see the city and some of the damage that had been done.
It was hard going because, as you can see in the map below the "Red Zone" takes up the balk of the city. I had to walk around the whole city center in order to get the views I wanted.
Walking through the city was both sad and erie. Most people have left their homes and at night the streets are as quiet as a graveyard with no lights coming from the central part of the city. The guards sit in their tents playing cards, a cat runs across your path as you walk past multiple demolished buildings. While the city is nearly destroyed, the people are hopeful, grateful and very friendly. I had a lot of questions obviously and everyone was happy to answer them. One of my drivers informed me that the Canterbury region or the area around Christchurch gets between 3,000-5,000 earthquakes (Small-Big) a year. WOW! I had to fly out of the city to get back to Wellington and as I sat on a street corner I experienced a small tremor which told me it was a good time to leave.
Dunedin: Named by Scottish emigrants and rightly so because if I were to ever visit Scotland, I would imagine it looked a lot like the area. Rolling hills, cliffs next to the sea, cold, wet and windy. Dunedin is known for being a college town and you can definitely tell. The campus is placed right next to the city center and is filled with bars, restaurants and music life. While I was there I climbed the steepest street in New Zealand (not that tough at all), ate in an awesome Irish pub, hit up the city's farmers market (had a bacon buddy, which was amazing), attended a concert with 9 local bands, spent some quality time with a bunch of old friends and met some new ones as well!
I got to see both the Otago Peninsula and tunnel beach which was a beach that was given to a wealthy mans daughter but in order for the young lady to get there dad had to carve a tunnel out of solid rock!
I enjoyed my weekend away from Wellington immensely and I can't say how awesome it was to see my friends. As Alyexandersupertramp put it "happiness is only true when shared,"-Into the wild. I am so glad to share my experiences with newfound friends and of course with all of you lovely people!
April 20th, 2011
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