I’m a little behind a blogging, but oh well- I’m out and busy playing, so get off my back. Writing just has to wait. (I’m on a flight to Sydney now- good time to catch up a bit? I watched The King’s Speech first though.)
I think it was about a week and a half ago that we flew down to Christchurch. We all know what happened there. We got in the day before the earthquake and decided to spend the day walking about the city. It’s very small and easily walkable, and one of our books had a nice self-guided tour.
We first caught lunch and some beer tastings at Dux de Lux brewery- if I lived in Christchurch, I would probably spend a lot of time here. The beer was good (review and earthquake updates are on MBR), but the patio was even better and it was really nice to just sit outside in the warm weather and enjoy a drink. First thing on the tour, we headed over to the botanical gardens. The annual festival of flowers was supposed to be going on and we were excited to see it, but it seemed to be between events- tents were up all over the park for the flower shows, but none were actually in use. The next day they all became shelter for folks whose homes were destroyed. I like flowers better.
There was also a really creepy fountain there…
Anyway, next we headed into the city center to see the sites and check out the historic buildings. Walking around, you could see a lot of the buildings still had scaffolding up working on repairs from the September earthquake. It’s strange that they’re mostly gone now (if not gone, then badly damaged). It was a really pleasant afternoon- just nice to be out in the sun and warmth. I do have to say though, Christchurch’s architecture/city planning weren’t very nice (sorry Chch!)- these beautiful gothic buildings were surrounded by these hideous, bauhausian/modern buildings from the ‘60’s that were totally run down and not nice to look at from the start. It just wasn’t a pretty city. It’ll be interesting to see what it looks like as they rebuild- I’m guessing the architecture will be a bit more consistent and, hopefully, more pleasing to the eye. Guess I’ll have to come back, huh?
That night we headed to the Twisted Hop, a real ale microbrewery, and if you don’t find me at Dux, you will definitely find me here. The building is down these narrow little lanes (former mews) full of beautiful old brick buildings- it was very charming. I fell in love. With the beer too. :)
Next day we were planning on heading to Pomeroy’s Old Brewery Inn before moving on to Lake Tekapo, but damn my poor planning (yay! my poor planning!), it’s closed for lunch on weekdays so we didn’t get to go. Poop. Until an earthquake hits and then it’s ok to not be in a building that was trashed and in a car two hours away instead.
We didn’t find out about the quake until we reached our hotel in Lake Tekapo. The front desk person told us first thing when we said we’d just come from Christchurch. He said it was really bad- the phone lines were down, the city ruined, etc.. JR and I both looked at each other and went ‘shit, my last facebook status said we’re in Christchurch.—Do you have internet here?!??’ We popped on right away to say we were ok and then spent the rest of the day glued to the television.
We didn’t actually feel the quake or any of the after shocks, but we did notice on our drive that suddenly the sheep would inexplicably take off running- no herding, no predators (there aren’t any)- they’d just run. And sheep don’t run. Over the next day we put two and two together: sheep running = earthquake/aftershock. Every time we saw them take off running, the DJ on the radio would update that another aftershock just occurred. So if you ever see sheep running, get outside asap. Of course, if you’re with sheep, you’re probably outside anyway, so just stay out of their way.
I’ll leave you with some before and after pictures from the NZ herald: side-by-side comparisons
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