A shorter, 9.25 hour flight saw us arrive around 10:30am in Christchurch, NZ to blue skies and 27 degrees. Lovely! Picking up our hire car, a nice Mazda 3, was easy and we made our way to our motel which was in a nice peaceful location. After a couple of hours grabbing a bit of sleep, our next door neighbours' daughter Karen, who lives near Christchurch, met us at our motel and drove us around Christchurch to help us get our bearings and we then parked in the Botanic Gardens and did a whistle stop walking tour of the city. We've never seen the aftermath of an earthquake before and, despite it being 5 years ago, the devastation is still very evident in places like Cathedral Square where the old cathedral is largely supported by steel girders; all the empty spaces where buildings once stood; the numerous condemned office blocks, hotels and other structures; and the many cordoned off areas. What is great to see though is the people's spirit as demonstrated through many huge murals on the sides of buildings and lots of stunningly designed new buildings. Doing a bit of food shopping was interesting, we went to Pac & Save that was like Aldi or Lidl in its layout/presentation but had Waitrose prices (or higher!). During our second day we walked into the city via Hagley Park, which is so big it includes a golf course! Another visit to the botanic gardens included the hot house that had some very large cactuses and some beautiful flowers. We ate lunch at the Re: Start Mall, the area where shops and bars are all housed in semi-permanent shipping containers.
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