The road to Christchurch and then back to Auckland

Back to the days of early starts! After a few days at Mount Cook, an 8am bus was not the nicest option! The trip through Canterbury was not overly exciting, with a gentle rolling landscape reminiscent of England.
 The hostel was very removed from the actual township, a nice peaceful location in the countryside, and I took advantage of the surrounds by doing an hour long horse trek.
 The next morning the bus was at 7am, for my final stint on the Stray Bus.

 Would I recommend them? There's definitely ups and downs, and it depends on how you want to see the country.
 If you're on your own, or only have a small amount of time, then they are useful, they take you to some amazing places, and their whole motto is to get "off the beaten track" (although with thousands of tourists a year going on the Stray bus, I wonder how beaten the track is getting...)

 I think I would have preferred to drive New Zealand. While the country does have a good selection of buses to get you to places (not just tour companies, but national express type equivalents as well), a car would allow you to get to almost completely isolated places (and not have to get up at stupid o'clock!!)

 It is also good for meeting new Germans...I mean people, which is obviously good if you're travelling on your own, and the fact you can organise activities directly through them helps save on the planning. Sometimes its just nice to be told what to do! (Especially at 7am in the morning).

The hop on - hop off system  is brilliant as well, as it means you don't have to rush around like a crazy fool if you don't want to, and stay to enjoy a spot you really like some more instead.

 The only thing I would say to people is to look at other hostel options. Stray guarantees your first night's accommodation at the location you are staying at, but that might not always be at the cheapest or nicest option. They always use a BASE hostel, which is horrible. I don't mean dirty (necessarily), but the Base franchise is a soulless money grabbing place, generally with no character. It's very easy to find nicer, more interesting hostels!

So....  on we went to Christchurch.

  For those who don't know, in September 2010, Canterbury suffered a 7.1 scale Earthquake, causing a lot of damage to buildings throughout the region, but no fatalities. On February 22nd 2011, a 6.3 magnitude quake stuck about 10km outside of Christchurch. This one has pretty much destroyed the central city, and 185 people lost their lives because of it.
 So the city itself is still a bit of a building site, to put it nicely. 2 years on, the central city is still closed to the public (except for a bus tour, which I took), lots of buildings are waiting to be brought down, and the CBD  (central business district) is going to be about 70% smaller when they've finished and rebuilt. So you can see a lot of this:

Christchurch Cathedral, which a battle is being fought over at the moment as to if it should be torn down and rebuilt, or restored

The site of the Canterbury Television Building, which was completely destroyed in the Quake, causing a lot of the 185 fatalities

This is a sign from the search and rescue teams who explored the city for people who  may have still been in buildings.  not sure about the TF, but the top figure was the date, showing when the building had been searched. You can find these marks all over the central city  and surrounds.

Front of the Cathedral

There's also the highly moving piece of art that is serving as a temporary memorial to the victims, called 185 chairs:
 

 
Each of the chairs was chosen by a family member of the victims, each different to reflect the different personality. There's a baby carrier in the front row which is obviously quite poignant.

So after taking a wander and seeing all of these ruins, and then doing the Earthquake museum, I was feeling a bit gloomy to say the least. It can be easy to get depressed here, but after a few days it's also easy to see the spirit of the people still living here.

 There's an initiative called Gap-filler, which is making the effort to find temporary uses for the spaces caused by the demolition and destruction. One of my favourites is the Pallet Pavilion;

As you can see, it's made of pallets, and the odd plastic box. There's a little coffee shop in there, and some food stalls as well. They also turn it in to a bar at the weekends, with live music. So little places have popped up all over the city; there's a book exchange in a fridge, some mini golf holes, and a range of things. If you wanted to have a look, go to www.gapfiller.org.nz
 
  Near the centre of the city, there's also the Re:start mall, which has been built out of shopping containers. It's bright and colourful, (a nice contrast to the destruction outside), and usually full of people.

There is also a topiary snake, some Penguins, and probably more I didn't spot!

 Events still carry on as well; there's lots of gigs spread throughout the suburbs of the city, and the stadium is still open; Santana played the day before I left. Even though the art gallery is closed, there's also alot of artwork that has been placed outside around the city. You can get a map and do the trail if you want to.
 There seems to be a good spirit in the people who live here, ones wanting to carry and with their lives and get the city back on it's feet.


  So  now I'm back in Auckland, having flown directly from Christchurch, and I'm staying with some friends that I used to live with. It's quite odd being back, especially as I  only have a couple of weeks until I fly out to Australia.

 For those who don't know the plan; I'm off to Perth to work. I'm looking at being in Australia for a year or two (still undecided but I like to take my time), before doing an epic road trip back through Asia and Europe before eventually getting home. When I  got out here almost a  year and a half ago now, I didn't know what to expect really. I won't lie and say I've loved every minute, but I have enjoyed  myself alot, and am looking forward to more adventures (as long as I don't melt or get killed by something deadly in Australia). Of course I'd recommend that you should go travelling here if you asked, here or anywhere. My biggest advice? It is what you make it.

Thanks for reading this (if you haven't just looked at the pictures), as I'm going to be working in Perth to start with, I doubt I'll be doing a blog for a while.... but I'm sure there will be bugsysaussieadventure.blogspot.com.au before too long......