Day 67 - Saturday 11th August - Christchurch

The Ashley Gorge River near the campsite

 We went into Christchurch city centre to see the earthquake devastation from the huge quake in February 2011. If I am honest I did not expect to see as much damage as we saw. We walked all the way round the Red Zone which is still fenced off.

We saw the temporary shopping mall which is created from brightly coloured metal ship container boxes for each individual shop. It makes the city centre bright and colourful, giving it a feeling of hope and regeneration.

The shipping container shopping mall

Earthquake devastion

Demolition work

We also saw the cathedral, which was sad to see so damaged, as it is a lively building.

The Cathedral

Christchurch is still having regular aftershocks, although we have not felt one in Christchurch we did feel one a few weeks ago, not centred in Christchurch though. Also a few days ago we discovered Mt Tongariro (Mordor) was erupting, the day after we were there! New Zealand is a very active country especially in recent years, pretty scary really.

After our tour of the city we drove out towards the airport stopping at a Pirate Crazy Mini Golf Course on the way. We both got holes in 1 on different greens!! It has to be said I did just beat Luke this time.

Pirate Mini Golf

For this evening we had booked a Maori Cultural Show and traditional Hangi meal. The cultural show took us though the procedures of a visitors arrival and welcome at a Maori Village. It was very interesting and the song, dance and music beautiful. We both got a chance to dance as well.

Maori greeting

Maori welcome

Maori welcome dance

Maori chief

Luke doing the Haka

The meal which followed was four courses:

Kumara (Sweet Potato) Coconut Milk Soup

Seafood - mussels and salmon

Hangi - meat (lamb and chicken), vegetables (carrots and sweet potatoes) and stuffing steamed over hot stones in a hole in the ground covered in earth

Pavlova with ice cream

It was delicious and the meat and vegetables had an earthen taste to it (not at all unpleasant though).

Only a few days left :(