In the interests of experiencing everything about New Zealand, I managed on the drive from Mount Cook to Christchurch to meet the Kiwi police. As with everyone here, they were very friendly, even when issuing me with a speeding ticket! The rest of the journey went quite slowly ……
We arrived in Christchurch about lunchtime and once we had checked in, headed straight down to the centre of town. On 22nd February 2011 Christchurch was hit by a significant earthquake. This was relatively short (initially just 10- seconds) but the damage was severe, possibly due to weaknesses caused by previous earthquakes. In the worst damage the CTV building collapsed killing 115 people. In total 185 people lost their lives in the earthquake and large numbers of buildings are still being repaired and rebuilt. The deaths are marked by an art installation called 185 empty chairs. It was initially just an unofficial memorial by the artist Peter Majendie, but it has now become a permanent installation. 185 empty chairs are painted white and laid out on 185 square metres of grass. The individuality of each chair symbolises the uniqueness of each person who died.
Just over the road from the chairs is what is termed the Transitional Cathedral – much better known locally as the Cardboard Cathedral. The main cathedral was badly damaged in the earthquake and, as part of the disaster relief programme, the local clergy contacted Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. He is well known for using recycled cardboard tubes and other materials for temporary housing for disaster relief. The cathedral was his largest project to date. The cathedral is made up of 86 cardboard tubes of 500 kilograms each. These sit on steel supports on top of 6 metres long shipping containers which are used as offices at the side of the cathedral. The whole cathedral is then roofed in polycarbonate.
We had a really interesting tour round the cathedral and then headed off to the other side of town to the Botanic Gardens and a very nice tea shop there! We finished the loop back to the motel by going past the Riverside Market – a new food market by the river.