Christchurch
Today we flew to the South Island and Christchurch.
In the early 1800s the working
man’s live in England was not an enviable one.
There were no unions, child labor was common, there were poor health
services, pollution was appalling and crime rampant. Unlike Australia where prisoners were
transported, New Zealand was seen as a paradise for workers. A utopian society was planned by the Church
of England and recruitment efforts led to first settlers coming to Christchurch
(name obvious reference) in 1850. Like
America it was advertised has having streets of gold; what they found were
streets of mudflats and tents.
In the past decade this town has been defined by an earthquake. On the early morning of September 4, 2010 a
7.1 magnitude earthquake centered around the farmlands outside of the city
caused considerable damage to the city but no loss of lives. In a sense the population thought they had
been spared. Then, 5 m later, on
February 22, 2011 an aftershock of 6.3 magnitude centered beneath the heart of
the city and basically destroyed it with a loss of life of 185 people. While this pales in comparison to the recent
earthquake in Turkey and Syria with the loss of 47,000 lives, it was
transformative for New Zealand which basically sits on a fault line. (PS, I looked at the most destructive
earthquake in the past century and it was in China in 1976 with a loss of over
250,000 lives). The city’s heritage
buildings, especially those made of brick rather than wood crumbled and streets
were swamped with liquefaction. The
central portion of the city was cordoned off for 2 years and more than half of
the standing buildings had to be taken down as unsafe. So the city is now basically 10 years old in
its rebirth, with all buildings now being constructed with moving foundations
that are more earthquake safe. The
devastation led to the population of the city decreasing from 410,000 to less
than 350,000. This experience reminds me
of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, with the initial hit of the winds and
rains causing little damage followed days later by the breaching of the levees
and the destruction and loss of lives that followed and the massive leaving of
residents forever.
Going South
From Christchurch it is mostly rural, mountainous regions that are very beautiful. We explored these on foot, by bus, on boats and a helicopter. I have attached some pictures below. The Fiords reminded me of Alaska and Norway. There are also some interesting signs about drones and in every town there is a war memorial and its seems like WWI had a greater impact than WWII on the population.
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| War memorial in Queenschurch showing WWI deaths on white stone and to the right the WWII losses on the black stone to the right of the arch |
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| picture from the Queenstown wharf |
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| Southern Alps and Fjiordland |
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| One of many waterfalls among the Alps |
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| On the boat in the fiords |
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| towards sunset in the fiords |
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| I like waterfalls so here is another |
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| on a hike |
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| Hans Josef Glacier |
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| Our helicopter |
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| flying over the glacier region |
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| the South Alps |
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| clever aquaduct to get through the mountain pass |
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| the glacier receding. |
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