/ Canterbury, South Island / By George
Moving on from the serenity of Waiau and heading to the metropolis of Christchurch was not something we were looking forward to, but was the essential purpose for our visit to the South Island (see “About Us”). We stopped for lunch at the Culverden pub after seeing their footpath sign advertising $12.00 lunch specials. They were bar meals but Deb’s fish and chips and my burger and chips were tasty and plentiful and fine dining by our usual Motorhome lunch standards! A brief stop at Amberly Countdown for supplies and it was straight to the new business owner’s premises in Christchurch to unload all the business stock. It was great to get this all out of our storage locker and reduce the weight in the vehicle. Our park-over location during our time in Christchurch would be at the new owners parent’s house on the front lawn. They had a motorhome themselves and were great hosts.
Although Debbie had to do the training of the new owners during the week, we still had the weekends to ourselves. I was at a ‘loose end’ during the working week but with my E-bike and a very flat geography in Christchurch I had plenty of sights I could easily get to. It was great also to be able to get my guitar out and work on a song I had penned as a result of something I had seen on our travels. Another was inspired by my time spent in and around Christchurch and the fact that it had been 10 years since the fatal earthquake. I am also a member of Snap Fitness and was able to attend a number of these whilst I was cycling around the suburbs, albeit a body shock since my last visit six weeks earlier. I also had the ‘motorhome’ chores to undertake and took regular trips to Weedons NZMCA Park to use the dump station and learnt how to use ‘Liquid Laundromats’!
I was involved in a project in the CBD about three years ago so was aware of the rejuvenation taking place there, but had been to very few other parts of Christchurch since the earthquakes. Even though ten years is a long time, natural disasters of this magnitude take considerable time to recover from and recovery, and in fact the process of recovery, will leave deep scars for many. Ten years on I describe Christchurch as being a city that is multi faced – having observed dereliction, desertion, reconstruction, illusion and renaissance. The autumn colours, the gently flowing Avon with punting in full swing and the crowded eateries made for a positive picture. But the vacant sites, the damaged buildings lodged in a time warp and the massive buttress props supporting those on life support were an antithesis.
Walls stripped naked of their neighbours yet still exposed, are the canvasses of adept street artists masking the substrate of tragic memories. New life grows as parks against a backdrop of spaces now extinct of homes, where owners walk their dogs and people like me ride bikes and dodge potholes. Creative locals are sending messages by paving stones in defunct cul de sacs. In these places the wounds are bare for all to see, but the displaced have moved on to firmer ground and hopefully a peace of mind.
Some things don’t change. The sea still rolled in on New Brighton beach and the Avon and Heathcote Rivers were still flowing calmly toward the sea. I visited the memorials and sat in contemplation of a event I never experienced. How you could you possibly imagine the plight of the fallen and the devastation to the life of their friends and families. Those that spoke by way of personal offerings left at the memorial wall maybe spoke for all. I’m sure all of those that experienced these events have moved on in their own ways, although from the heartfelt messages I read, for some it will never be far.
New suburbs have grown and continue to expand and the happy cries of the children in new parks and playgrounds, many who knew nothing of actual events, is uplifting. Innovation is rife with the transitional church for example, being used for multiple events judging from the dance contest that was on the day we rode past. We lunched on loaded wedges at Smash Palace, a beer garden and burger joint pieced together from an old bus and various other eclectic buildings, which seems extremely popular with all ages and offers an exceptionally relaxed atmosphere. The male toilet is a fine example of the overall ambience here. The owner’s original bar was destroyed in the earthquakes, but ingenuity and resilience have prevailed to enable survival.
Sure this is not everyone’s story, but in the end… the rivers flow on….
We also have a You Tube channel where you can see a video and song based on our visit to Christchurch. Click here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb2jXq_Ne30