A moving time in Christchurch – in every sense of the word

On Tuesday, March 27, I took the long route towards Christchurch as there were a couple of places I wanted to visit because of the name – Caroline Bay, for example – but for various reasons, I didn’t get what I wanted from the detour.

It was my last full day with Greg, so I took the opportunity to visit Banks Peninsula, which I had been told was very pretty. It was. I drove to the postcard-perfect little town of Akaroa but didn’t stay very long because I needed to check into my hostel in Christchurch before reception closed.

When I got to Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-largest city, it was a bit of a challenge to find the hostel because some of the streets I wanted to drive down were in the zone that had been closed off since last year’s earthquake. The YHA hostels were closed, but the staff in Dunedin had suggested I stayed at the BBH hostel The Old Countryhouse.

I went for a walk around the boundary of the ‘red zone’, right in the city centre, and I was moved to tears, seeing the devastation and thinking about the impact it had on people. There were still flowers and messages tied to the metal fences surrounding the zone. Further out, there were houses-beyond-repair being torn down and cracked pavements all over the place. One building that was in ruins still had the New Zealand flag flying from its roof, like a show of defiance against nature. I came across a team of people demolishing another building and joined the small crowd that was watching from the other side of the road. “That was the convention centre,” said a Kiwi standing next to me, matter-of-factly. “It was a fairly new building.” The digger pulled down a wall, and the ground shook.

I thought that would be the closest I got to knowing what an earthquake felt like, but that night, just after 3am, my bed started to shake as if it was a washing machine on fast spin, and something near the window, or perhaps it was the window itself, started to rattle. The aftershock lasted for just a few seconds.

“Don’t bother going to Christchurch,” several people had said to me on my travels. “It’s been totally destroyed.” My flight departs from Christchurch, and I was looking forward to visiting my friend Alina, who I hadn’t seen for five years, but even without these reasons, I’m glad I came here, as the information I’d been given was an exaggeration. There were still lots of things to see and places to go, from the botanic gardens, which were both lovely and extensive (you would have to pay to see gardens that nice in the UK), to the cinema and pubs such as cosy Pomeroy’s, which offered delicious food and live music. The mall created from shipping containers was bright and colourful, and inspiring.

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