This is the second time I am writing today's post... The first time didn't save for
some stupid reason...
Anyways, today we ported in Dunedin, near Christchurch. It is our first of two stops on the South Island of New Zealand. We had a tour booked that gave an overview of the city in the morning and an afternoon wine tour.
We started our day, as always, grabbing a quick breakfast at the buffet, eating it outside overlooking the back of the ship, and then heading ashore. This was yet another industrial port that we had to jump on a shuttle to get to the city, but it was less than a five minute ride away.
We met Di, our tour guide and two other passengers for the city tour.
Di started out by giving us general Christchurch information. It is called Canterbury Plains because it is so flat, and indeed it is the flattest place we have seen in New Zealand so far. She also told us a lot about the earthquakes that have reshaped Christchurch.
On September 11th, 2010 a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit at 4am. There were no deaths, but a lot of what was described as "Liquifaction" occurred... silt and dirty water shooting up from the earth creating swampy wet land that houses sunk in to. Basically it causes the soil to act more like a liquid during an earthquake.
Then on February 22nd, 2011 a devastating 6.3 earthquake hit at 12:35pm with a force that sent a wave over Christchurch. Buildings fell, earth and dust shot up, and 185 people died. This was an aftershock from the previous earthquake, but due to the severity they decided to just call it an earthquake. In the following year, there were 11,000 additional aftershocks. 1,000 homes out of about 16,000 were lost. Many buildings continued to lose parts due to the aftershocks. The government evacuated the city for two years while assessments were done. People are still fighting with their insurance companies to pay them for their losses. New buildings can't be more than seven stories tall.
Di said the Christchurch of today isn't the city she grew up knowing. It is almost entirely new build, and hopefully will be completely rebuilt and recovered in 20 more years so she can see it in her lifetime. The downtown now is a mix of modern buildings, with buildings that are still being knocked down or worked on, even after all these years.
She was funny when we were driving around, pointing out the "seagulls", who were the parking enforcement workers. She said when she worked in an office someone would shout "seagulls coming" and everyone would run out to move their car or plug the meter.
She also told us a story that someone is bringing a scooter into the botanical gardens and stealing flowers... they just stole 160 tulip bulbs. She said yesterday when she was touring the gardens someone was writing a news story about it, and sure enough, at one of our stops later in the day she had a newspaper her husband told her to get that had her pic with the story.
Another thing I haven't mentioned is that they kill all undesired animals in New Zealand... rats, possums, rabbits, etc. They find them and kill them. Di told a story about possums. She said her husband will put peanut butter on a tree and then a possum will come and eat it and then go tell all his possum friends about it. Then, the next night, her husband puts peanut butter with a cyanide pill on many trees, all the possums come and eat it and then the husband bonks them on the head and knocks them out. Then they pluck their fur before they die because that's the only time you can do it. I guess the point of this story is just to illustrate that they are living very different lives here in New Zeland than I do!
After we looked over Christchurch we headed into town and stopped at Mona Vale Garden Park. It was beautiful, and a little weird because leaves were starting to change colors and blow off trees... Fall in March, only had to come half way around the world to see it.
