New Zealand. Christchurch

We awake to find a sunny Tekapo! Yay! So nice to eat breakfast outside with such great views. 

Bit of a change to yesterday and looked good for a sunny day in Christchurch. My expectations of Christchurch were pretty low due to all the accounts of it having nothing there due to the earthquakes in 2010/11. And they were right. The city is so weird. I've never been anywhere like it and also hope never to again as it felt like a war zone. There were building after building of cordoned off shops, flats and houses which were either falling down or must have been structurally unsound. There was also a lot of car parks in the centre on demolished land. Very strange. But it seemed like the locals or council were very keen to make the best if the situation. I liked how the fencing had been decorate to look less utilitarian and there was so much art work on all the buildings. In some ways it looked really beautiful. 

I went to the shopping area which was created out of brightly painted shipping containers. It was fantastic. They had shops and banks and cafés all in these containers. It looked really cool!

I went to visit the Cathederal which was very iconic in the news when the big quake happened. It looked just like it did on the news except that the steeple had been taken down fully. It looked so sad. Just like a lot of the place. 

I then walked to the replacement Cathederal. I'd heard about the cardboard Cathederal so was looking forwards to seeing it. It was not so impressive. Not the cardboard box creation I was expecting. More of a plastic covered cardboard tubing tent. 

Walking the streets of Christchurch felt very weird. It was just a massive construction site and felt like you were walking up streets in a run down bit of town in which you'd avoid as it would be a bit dodgy. But the whole place was like this! 

I took a walk to the botanic gardens in Hagly park (4th largest park in the world did you know, the kiwis love their stats). The park was in an area of town less affected by the quake and it had a lot of the heritage style buildings similar to the ones I really liked in Australia. But the place is so quiet! It was St Patricks and you'd hardly know it. Not a pub anywhere to be seen!