Christchurch Part 2

After getting your head around how Christchurch works post-earthquakes, you can find your way around what is still a great city. Still open and going well are the Antarctic Experience near the airport and the Canterbury Museum which is just outside the red zone and had fortunately been re-enforced just a couple of years before the big quakes.

Christchurch is a departure point for most Antarctic exploration with the US maintaining an enormous hangar at the airport to keep all their survey and exploration supplies. Opposite this, a small centre has details of New Zealand’s role in the Antarctic with a tagged on penguin house, because everyone loves penguins! The highlight really is a Hagglund ride, the same Swedish made vehicles that are used in most snow and ice environments around the North and South Pole. An old driver hops in to take a group for a spin out back of the centre showing off how the vehicles can climb and descend incredibly steep angles, pass through water and cross quite large crevasses.

The windchill room - the room stays at -8 and a huge
fan blasts wind so you can experience the difference it makes!

More penguins!

Ivan Mauger's gold plated speedway bike presented when
he won his 3rd world championship. Worth US$0.5m

An old Hagglund vehicle

Back in town though, and next to the botanic gardens – generally worth a look in any city – is the Canterbury Museum. Regulation behind the glass early history exhibits show how Christchurch grew as the most English of all New Zealand cities along a garden city principle. A visiting World of Wearable Art (no photos!) and Ivan Mauger (speedway champion) exhibition were well worth a look, but the main draw is the earthquake room.

Housing a quickly assembled repository of post-quake displays, the room covers the scientific angle with details of all the fault lines in NZ, coupled with rolling video of security camera footage of the quakes happening, and a whole lot more. The security camera footage is at times incredibly powerful with a clock ticking down to the time you know it’s going to happen. People cycle past, cross the road, look in estate agents windows, then suddenly huge chunks of stone masonry fall off several buildings crushing parked cars below, people panic, run into the middle of the road and generally work out how to get as far away from where they are as possible.

Pieces of civic infrastructure such as electricity and water pipes are displayed to show how badly they were stretched and broken, highlighting how impressive it was the electricity was back on in about a week. Water supply was a bit more ad-hoc with a fleet of trucks running in porta-loos to each street corner until the mains were sorted out. Aside from all the information and visuals, huge parts of Christchurch’s cathedral and other important buildings are on display as well as well boards showing well wishes from all corners of the world and little details such as road cones with flowers and other decorations, something the locals took to doing because they were fed up with the amount of boring orange cones everywhere.

Post-quake bridge

A road having being streched sideways

Christmassy road cones

Kiwi's have a way of plain speaking

An 'in-between' project, filling in a cleared site

Just outside the museum is the greatest tribute to the post-earthquake effort, known as Re:start. A collection of temporary shops built on a cleared street brings a riot of colour, interesting shapes and most importantly, people doing normal things such as shopping and drinking coffee back to the city centre. Sometimes from dereliction a fresh start can be produce unexpected outcomes, as in this case which is great to see though there’s a hell of a long way for the city still to go.

Container shops

Re:start shops

Container shops

After a longer than expected stay in Christchurch, I was desperate to get moving again and with a break in what had been relatively poor weather, I decided to finally tackle Arthur’s Pass, a ride people had been saying was a must-do for some time.

28 Feb – 05 Mar: Christchurch Part 1

Christchurch had always been a beacon before I had even set off, a city I’d heard had been through a series of huge earthquakes a couple of years ago, and was at the start of re-building an entire city centre. I’d been looking at job adverts appearing and disappearing from various internet sites whilst I was in Europe, India and Nepal. I’d starting applying for jobs whilst in Nepal, more for the sake of getting my CV out to companies in the city than expecting any immediate return.

The first thing you notice about Christchurch when you arrive is that it sits on an incredibly, pancake flat plain, the other big cities of New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin) are all very hilly (Dunedin even has the steepest residential street in the world!). With Auckland, the sky tower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, stands atop a hill the city centre is built around meaning you can see it from everywhere. Wellington is so crammed onto a shoreline between the sea and inland hills, that its forced a number of big skyscrapers to huddle together along the shoreline making it a very simple city to find your way around. Dunedin likewise, the city is along three main roads running lengthways along a harbour, if you’re going up a hill, you’re going into the suburbs.

But Christchurch is so incredibly flat, and known as the ‘garden city’ very leafy which means it’s hard to orientate yourself, stand on any street in the suburbs and it will likely be tree lined, so you never have any idea where the centre is. If you live there, it would make everything feel very homely, like a cluster of little villages, but to find your way round without a map is impossible!

Having found a friend to store my broken panniers, I went off for a walk around the city centre. I'd read on the internet reports that made it sound like the centre was on the verge of a full re-opening, it was a major surprise to see how non-existent it still is. The main problem is three huge skyscrapers (a hotel and two banking offices). Whilst contractors are busy ripping down everything around them, bearing in mind the city centre is about the size of Leeds, it’s taking a long time. The three tall buildings are all condemned so there is a ‘red-zone’ cordon set around a ‘safe toppling zone’ if another major earthquake to hit and the worst was to happen. Indeed, plenty of earthquakes still rumble all the time: http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/largest but it’s the ones above 6 on the Richter Scale that really create problems.

The river Avon doesnt fit its banks properly
as the bottom is full of 'liquefaction', a silt like
mud that comes up through the ground during earthquakes

Damaged homes in the suburbs, the house is sinking
and the roof is damaged. It is scheduled for demolition
so the garden is overgrown as no-one lives here.

A bridge that has raised up from its normal level
but has been repaired and passable with care

Homes in Sumner where a cliff has given way

Shipping containers protect traffic on the road from rock slides

It’s impossible to make sense of a situation where a city has its centre ripped out, so a whole still functioning major city has to go to work, shop, and be entertained in its suburbs, a real ‘doughnut’ city if there ever was one. What’s even more unusual is to see a Kiwi city looking a mess. New Zealander’s have a fanatical devotion to keeping things neat and tidy so it’s rare to see a city like Christchurch with overgrowing gardens, potholed roads and collapsing fences. With so many people moving out, most streets have a series of empty homes that have been left to nature either because jobs moved elsewhere or they were ‘red-stickered’ as condemned by surveyors.

Damaged buildings just outside the red zone

Bracing on civic buildings

Opposite the civic buildings -
a statue by Mackenzie thorpe
outside the dyslexic institute

The old city centre behind barriers

As with most people watching news reports of the earthquake, I had no idea how bad the situation was. With a relatively low number of reported deaths in the first few days, then with the Japanese tsunami grabbing news headlines soon after, it was easy to fail to notice what had happened here. The 180+ deaths, though relatively low, had a profound effect on the city. In the rest of the world, people say you’re never more than seven steps removed from knowing someone, on the South Island of New Zealand, it’s closer to two, so almost anyone you speak to will know someone who had lost their life. This combined with the loss of everything that made Christchurch great – a huge sports stadium, world class music arena venue, a city centre that Lonely Planet had named the no.1 best thing to see in the whole of New Zealand, all of which are being slowly pulled apart, has had a profound effect on local people. There isnt much 'old' architecure in New Zealand, the grand town halls and city centres that Europeans are used to. What there was was mostly in Christchurch. Much of it has now gone leaving just a question of what will come next and the inevitable concern that it won't be as good.

There is little information about the earthquakes around town, the centre still looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but what there is can be found in the Canterbury museum - and that'll be in my next update.

17-27 Feb: Bluff, Milford Sound and Dunedin

From Queenstown, there’s only one direction south, along some huge lakes down towards Invercargill and Bluff, the most southerly point on the road in New Zealand, so a place I had to aim for.

Invercargill, ‘The Southernmost City in the Empire’ really isn’t too much to shout about, a very functional place like a lot of port towns in the UK, nobody’s going to make too much effort making something pretty to look at, its just got to keep the weather out and last a long time. So not stopping too long meant taking a 20km trip down to Bluff, a tiny fishing village with a signpost in a car park at the end of the road referencing various places around the world as they all do in places like this. It’s 18,958kms to London, quite a way!

Buff - the end of the road south

A long way to London

Hitting the bottom of the South Island felt like the end of this trip even though it’s time isn’t quite up yet. For the first time wherever I go will be heading closer to home, and the point-to-point travelling of recent times ends here to become a more easy going run around ticking off touristy places I’d like to see and roads people say just have to be ridden.

The weather was taking a turn from the worse and from Buff all the way to Te Anau, a starting point for Milford Sound, saw heavy grey skies, damp roads and a chill in the air. Reaching Te Anau in late afternoon, with soaking wet boots and frozen hands, the backpackers I was aiming for was frozen, so I splurged on the cheapest motel I could find, still a nice place with, importantly, a couple of useful heaters to get my boots dried out for tomorrow’s ride.

The clouds never lifted but I’d decided to have a ride across to Milford Sound regardless as you never know here, you can hit a patch of sunny blue sky out of nowhere. Huge mountain peaks were hidden by infuriating cloud all the way along, it’s frustrating knowing you’re in one of the most beautiful parts of the world but just can’t see it for the weather! Having some lunch I checked out postcards to see where I was, seems it’s very picturesque.

Heading into a long dark tunnel near Milford Sound

Clouds sit in the valley as the road winds downhill

Arare break of blue sky above the mountains

Milford Sound, from where the boats leave

After lunch at the micro-small village at Milford Sound, I set off to get about half way to Dunedin on the other side of the island. Unfortunately this was when I met an American guy driving on the wrong side of the road, the resulting collision tearing off one pannier and trashing the other as my bike hit the mountainside.

This little event meant a major re-think of the next week. No longer a simple trip to Dunedin and Christchurch, I needed to store my wrecked panniers somewhere, lodge a claim with the other drivers insurance company and find some replacements.

An English couple had stopped to help out and check I was OK after the smash, so I found them at a small campsite, hired myself a bed in a bunk room and set about sorting the insurance claim out.

Te Anau being a very small village wasn’t an appealing place to spend a while waiting until some new panniers were sorted, so I left my battered boxes in a luggage storage locker and headed cross country to Dunedin, the nearest ‘big city’ and booked 5 nights in a Youth Hostel there to get all this sorted.

Riding to Dunedin, passing Lake Tekapo

Riding through Lewis Pass

Lewis Pass

out the far end of the Lewis Pass

More mountain scenery on the 600km ride to Dunedin

Following a few locals near Dunedin

Luckily the American drivers insurance company agreed to buy me some new panniers to get me back on the road as soon as I found some and got an invoice through to them. Before I’d set off on the trip I’d been set to order some Andy Strapz Expedition Panniers from an Australian company that are the most highly spoken of panniers across the internet. As my bike came with some boxes already on it, I didn’t bother but now I could get some brand new ones, fully paid for by someone else – so every cloud has a silver lining really!

So with some new kit in the post from Australia, I rode back over to Te Anau to collect my old battered stuff and run it up to Christchurch where a friend can store it until the new stuff arrives and I decide if I can take the old ones home as a souvenir!

16th Feb: Skippers Canyon, Queenstown

John is my Canadian biker friend. John has a ‘bikers atlas of New Zealand' that shows all the best on and off road places to go. I can’t find one anywhere to buy so pour over it and memorise as much as possible when he’s around. One highlighted route near Queenstown trailed up towards a local ski area before splitting between an on-road section to the ski lifts or an off-road route to Skippers Canyon. By the canyon name marker was a little icon meaning a Lord of the Rings location – The Ford of Bruinen.

If you’ve not seen the first of the trilogy, the Ford of Bruinen comes at the end of a lengthy horse chase through forests and mountainous scenery where the goodies make it across the river and the evil-doers get washed away by a magical flood that comes coursing around a tree lined spur. It all looked good on film, so in real life it must be OK too, no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qxxfrdYvl8&feature=fvsr

I used OK in that last sentence to tee up this one that says something like: OK, hell it was way better than that, it’s rightly known as one of the best short trail rides in a country that doesn’t lack for them.

From here its mostly pictures because I don’t possess the vocabulary to cover it appropriately...

The paved road up to Coronet Peak ski area

Twisting up one side of the moutain

The trail leads away down the other side of the moutain

A sharp drop as the trail rounds a corner

Going between a rock and a hard place

Corner after corner, the trail hugs the mountainside

A river roars past a long way below

Stopping every 5 minutes to take pictures

Riding along the path of the river

The trail narrows up along a ledge

Ledge falls away bringing the trail closer to the river

Still on a loose surface, closing in on the riverside

Spot the trail running along
the cliff face in the background!

Back up high again, looking down a valley

Out of the valley, the trail winds on and on and on

Crossing a long old bridge

Bike posing for a pic by the creaky bridge

Finally made it!! Spotting movie locations gives you a buzz
when you realise you're at the exact place it was filmed

Me at the Ford of Bruinen!

Riding back up out of the canyon

Exiting the trail back onto the ski-area road

Rolling back down towards Queenstown