Day 86: Driving to Christchurch, In Christchurch

Hindsight being what it is, we should have come to Oamaru so much sooner.  It is lovely, relaxing, on the water, and much less expensive (read: not overpriced) compared to Queenstown.  But that's hindsight for you.

Here's the view from our Airbnb place. 

In the yard that morning, I found these guys:

Two enormous puffball mushrooms, each easily as large as my head.  I'm pretty sure they are edible, but wild mushrooms still freak me out a little when it comes to eating, so we let them be.

And a not quite as long drive later, we arrived in Christchurch.  The devastation of the series of earthquakes that have really never stopped affecting the city was very apparent.  Lots and lots of empty lots and construction everywhere.  The use of shipping containers for temporary and not so temporary commercial structures.

And some very cool play grounds:

Along with this great waterworks playground.  Where else will you find working dams, weirs, pumps, flood gates, and Archimede's Screws in a playground?

And the lay out is an urban designers wet dream, with the city's river, the Avon, bordering one side, and all sorts of concentric and close set circles and arcs.

The advantage, as much as it is one, of lots of empty lots is lots of 'canvas' for artists to use.  Like this:

Or this:

I liked this caption from the wall text about the above sculpture.

A newish looking trolley rolls around and through some newish looking shopping centers in town.

More public art, in the form of astroturf covered oversized furniture.

A silent dance space, with some dancers.

The Christchurch cathedral is falling apart, and there is a huge debate on whether to rebuild it, or to build a different style of building that is less susceptible to massive earthquakes.  Below I have pictures of the temporary cathedral in the city.  It's also a designer's wet dream, but pretty cool.  It's constructed of heavy duty cardboard tubes, steel, and plastic, and even as a 'temporary' building, it'll last 50 years.  Pictures near the bottom of this post.

There was a busquer's festival in town that week, so we were treated to more musicians, acrobats, comedians, and pan handlers than you would expect.  But we did get to watch a bit of fire spinning as dusk approached.

Here's some pictures of the temporary cathedral.  It was locked, so we didn't get to go in.

A neat and poignant memorial to the people killed in the first massive quakes.  A white chair, no two alike, for each person who died.  It too is supposed to be temporary, but I hope they find some way of making it more permanent.

Also, since we were there (I'm obviously still very far behind on posting) another quake, this one "only" 5.7 on the Richter scale has hit the city.  No one was serious hurt or killed this time, but its obviously not easy for the city that has lost more than a fifth of its population, and is still trying to rebuild from five years ago.  Still, we did like the city, and its charm and spunk as it continues to tread onward, even as the very earth seems to not like it very much.