The decimation of Christchurch

I must admit that I came to Christchurch with a bias. Everyone that I had met so far told me to just not bother with it as it was a city in ruins with damaged building everywhere and temporary housing. The truth is that they were half right.

In February 2011 Christchurch was rocked by a series of seismic activity that left the once beautiful city in ruins. On the 22nd Feb, the day that it all started, there were 446 separate earthquakes followed up by another 335 on the 23rd. During the February 2011 earthquakes 185 people lost their lives and the city was reduced to ruins.

When you start to look around the city centre the destruction is still visible nearly 4 years on from the event. Most of the city centre is either construction sites starting to build replacement buildings, empty lots filled with rubble where a building once was or half torn down buildings still showing the horror of what has occurred. Many of the historical buildings are trying to be have their features saved which has meant building massive steel structures on the fronts of buildings, reinforced with shipping containers while the backs of the buildings have since either fallen away or been ripped down. It really is horrifying to see the damage that this has caused and I cant imagine how people picked up the pieces and got on with their lives. It seems like it is still devastation but the people here still seem confident and have slowly been putting the pieces back together but it looks like it is going to be at least another 10 years before it starts to resemble its old self.

One of the biggest bits of controversy in the city is the plans to rebuild / repair the cathedral in the centre of the city. When looking at the front of the building it does look a completely ruined. The main tower has collapsed and the front of the building is now missing where it has dropped away since being reinforced. That being said, there has been independent reviews of the building and apparently the majority of it is still sound and could be made safe and rebuilt to the strictest modern guidelines, the only issue is the cost as the insurance money wont quite cover it so they are looking for other ways to fund it without it hindering the tax payers. Hopefully this gets rebuilt as I think it is quite an iconic building giving its location in the centre square and would serve as a symbol of defiance against the tectonic destruction that caused it.

Now that I have explained why this is a depressing and lonely ghost city, let me explain why it is full of life and one of the most amazing cities I’ve ever visited.

Although the big buildings of the city centre may have been damaged and torn down, the main central park is fully intact and better than ever. Today I went out for a run in the park and ended up spending 2 hours out there, running about and playing on all the things in the fitness trail. I ended the run by going through the beautiful botanical gardens, weaving in and out of the various plants and bushes and only stopping to admire the truly gargantuan trees in the centre of the park. I have never seen trees as big in my life as some of the ones there. It wasn’t the high that was the impressive park but the fact that the trunk must have been over 20ft across on this giant tree. Hagley Park is one best parks I think I have been too, especially for one in a city. Not only does it have massive areas of green space for people to relax and chill out but the park has also been split into areas that have different functions and purposes. One area has football pitches, another cricket, another rugby and even a golf course in the middle. There is also a netball academy in one corner of the park that has 40 netball courts, not nets, 40 full courts! I couldn’t believe it when I saw them all. Running around that park today I saw all of the life that the city centre may be missing at the moment but I’m sure that it will get it again soon enough. The river running through the park and the city is also beautiful. At first I thought the water was dirty and cloudy until I realised that I wasn’t looking at mud “in” the water, I was looking at the mud on the bottom of the riverbed. The water was crystal clear, it just want notable until there was a leaf or plant on the bottom to see the contrast. For me the park is a massive redeeming factor for the city. It is not just good for Christchurch it is good full stop and I think I would be more comfortable to live in any city that has that much nature on the door step available every day.

The other thing that makes this city amazing in my eyes is probably down to personal taste and opinions but for me it is the street art. I don’t know how much of this was embraced before the disaster, however Christchurch now has a love affair with street art in a way that I have never seen anywhere else in the world. Walking around there are massive pieces of work on the sides of buildings all around the city that make it come alive and pop. One moment it looks like a war zone and the next you see a piece of art 50 meters across and just have to stop to take a picture. The juxtaposition of the 2 causes you to stop for a moment and think tuning this place into a photographers paradise. I have taken more pictures here than anywhere else that I have visited and to me every picture is pure gold. I managed to arrive in the middle of the Spectrum art festival which is trying to bring street art to the masses. When I say street art most people instantly think of an ugly tag on a wall or a bus stop by a 12 year old who managed to get his hands on a can of spray paint in a DIY shop but the art here is nothing like that. These pieces have been put together by professionals and the size alone shows how much planning must have gone into this to make it happen. People young and old alike seem to stop in the streets and look at they pass by one of these masterpieces. The local YMCA also had an indoor exhibit that I managed to see which was also breathtaking. I have taken so many pictures that I will just let the gallery on this page speak for its self.

Christchurch is broken, that is easy for anyone to see, but it does have a heart that is certainly still beating and beating hard. It still has issues with earthquakes (there have been 3 since I’ve been here) but they are starting to put things back together and return the city centre to its former glory, obviously with some higher building regulations this time! That being said I think that Christchurch may be one of my favourite cities. the city centre is all flat which makes getting around nice and easy yet there are still hills off in the distance where fun can be had on a mountain bike if required. Even though there are signs of chaos everywhere the street art and parks make up for it. I know I could much rather have devastation and beautiful nature here then wall to wall buildings like it is in Auckland.

Who knows what the future holds for Christchurch but I certainly know I wont be crossing it off my list again in a hurry!