Up early to travel to Christchurch, our last full day in New Zealand, and we've had a blast! A warm but cloudy day, we stopped off to visit Little River craft shop and admire some of the handiwork on sale there. Before we knew it we were in Christchurch and at the Antarctic Centre which was to keep us amused for the next few hours and is well worth a visit. We especially liked the 'snowstorm' room where we donned thick jackets and stood around in a snowbound room waiting for the storm and feeling sorry for those people in shorts. The minus 8 soon dropped to minus 38 - brrrr and it was more than a bit cold! Apparently the lowest temperature recorded was -89 which would freeze a person in ordinary clothes within a minute. And we decided that it takes a special constitution to survive in winter twilight for several months of the year.

On then to visit friends of relatives in Christchurch. The tourist guide info tells you that Christchurch 'getting on with business'.....and we suspect it is but were felt that for those directly affected by the earthquakes it must be anything but getting on with business - and that transpired to be true. As we approached our friend's home the roads were in poor shape - dips, bumps and humps all over the place and grey dust all over the road. Some house were shored up and habited, some appeared un-damaged and some were clearly abandoned. On one marked red for demolition - the owners had written in red paint over the wooded boarded front - we will do everything we can to salvage this house'.

Our friends home is 'orange' meaning one year on they are still waiting to hear if the home they built themselves is to be marked 'red for demolition'. They are in limbo along with many other home owners. Some homeowners have been paying an 'earthquake tax' on their city tax - but not all have. Those that don't receive no assistance from the Government and are at the bottom of the pile for the expense of rebuild / renovate and some aren't covered by house insurance. In our friends road of the 34 homes - 24 have been abandoned by their owners leaving a dusty quiet community for those remaining. The street is covered in a fine grey plaster type dust which is a result of frequent liquefaction. Periodically the earth opens and small fountains pour out grey water - rock from the earth ground to a dust and mixed in the water - which when it dries leaves the grey dust we saw everywhere. Our friends home has shifted a few inches on its base, has multiple cracks and leans down on each side from its centre. Stoically they say 'we are fortunate, we can live in our house' but the statement barely hides the trauma. Many people not only lost their homes - they lost their livelihoods too as downtown firms unable to operate out of damaged buildings closed down.

We felt that we ought to see the city centre for ourselves: the whole centre is sealed off with metal fences, there is evidence of new build but we were told that it would take all the pile drivers in Asia, New Zealand and Australia 5 years to underpin the earth for re-building. The day was by now sunny and hot, in Latymer Park (at the town centre) the birds sang in the trees and a girl sat on a blanket quietly reading a book, a church stood windowless, coffee bars and shops appeared frozen in time and the traffic lights eerily changed colour with no traffic to order and all was as still as still. It was a very distressing thing to see - so many lives in limbo, so many communities destroyed.