Christchurch

Mid-December Will had a work trip to Christchurch, and since school had finished for the year, I was able to join him. It was only one night, but because we flew down early on the Wednesday morning then returned late on Thursday night, we actually got to see a fair bit. 

Will was travelling with some of his colleagues from the Design School to attend a Med-Tech conference. When we arrived we picked up a hire car that the university had organised, and parked near the hospital where the event was taking place. I then wandered into the central city to explore. I hadn't been to Christchurch for a long long time, and certainly not since the February 2011 earthquake which essentially reduced the city centre to rubble. It was pretty incredible how different everything looked. On my way to the centre I wandered through the Botanic Gardens, then called into the i-SITE. Whilst there I saw a card advertising 'free' walking tours of the centre. You just had to meet at the Chalice at 11am. The tour was good. It lasted about 2 and a half hours, and there were about 10 of us. Despite being advertised as free, we were expected to tip around $10 if we enjoyed it, which I did, so I did. 

It was quite sad seeing the cathedral in the state it was, since it used to be such an icon of the city. It is still undecided whether it is going to be demolished, or faithfully restored.

 Christchurch does have some of the funkiest bollards I've ever come across!

Some parts of the city had been fully restored and you wouldn't have known an earthquake had taken place, whereas other parts where just construction sites. I don't think I have ever seen so many cranes, or construction workers in high-vis in one place! It was nice to see some of the trams back in action, as that was definitely something I remembered from my previous trips to the city.

It was a little spooky just how quiet and deserted the city centre was. Apart from the odd tourist walking round with a camera, there were very few people just wandering around.

One of my favourite places was the Re:START mall. This is a temporary shopping mall made out of shipping containers. It was a very cool place to hang out with lots of food trucks to choose from when hungry.

I also thought the Transitional Cathedral (aka the Cardboard Cathedral) was a cool building. Part of its construction includes 60cm diameter cardboard tubes, and 8 shipping containers help form the walls. Christchurch has certainly put an awful lot of shipping containers to good use as it goes about its rebuild!

There is also a lot of cool art around, and more going up, literally right in front of your very eyes! It does help brighten up the city centre and make it a bit less depressing than it might have been while the rebuild is going on.

This below was Will's favourite wall, I wonder why??!

The Deloitte building was one of the first major building projects to get finished, and I really like it. It's all shiny glass and curves. Below it you can see the new cast-iron 'man in the river' sculpture (not sure of its official name) by Anthony Gormley who created the UK's 'Angel of the North'.

The '185 Chairs' memorial was quite moving. It is 185 empty chairs that have all been painted white, one chair to represent every life that was lost in the earthquake.

The main memorial is under construction on the banks of the river Avon. There was a competition to design the memorial, and I quite like the winning entry which you can see the plan for here.

Speaking of the river, it was nice to see the punting still in business, as that is definitely something I associate with Christchurch. It is one of the few things I remember about Christchurch from our family holiday touring the South Island when I was just a kid!

After my day exploring the city, I headed back to the hospital at around 5pm to meet up with Will and the others. They were in the middle of a wine and nibbles function so I joined in and nobody seemed to mind! The others were staying in town for a bit so Will and I headed to our motel near the university. The rental vehicle was a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser, and Will had been delegated the driving duties for the trip, so he enjoyed taking charge of the beast! During our flight down we got chatting to the other woman sitting on our row who happened to be a local. We asked her for her dinner recommendations, and she suggested Spice Paragon. We heeded her advice and ended up having an outstanding meal. It was Thai Fusion, really really well done.

On the Thursday Will had a free morning, before heading off to his final meetings around lunchtime. We were up nice and early and headed back into the city where I gave Will a city tour (pretty much retracing most of my steps from my tour the previous day). We then enjoyed a very tasty brunch at one of the cafes in the Re:START mall before he went off to his meeting. I did a bit more wandering around, then also spent some time reading my kindle in the sunshine before meeting the others later in the afternoon. Then it was off to the airport with a nice dinner in the Koru lounge before our flight home.

Although brief, it was a very interesting and enjoyable trip. It will also be interesting next time I go back to see the progress that has been made on the rebuild. In some ways it is an exciting opportunity having such a blank canvas and the chance to totally redesign a substantial part of the inner city.