Well,  we just experienced our first earthquake.  Sitting here, watching TV on Christmas eve, the floor moved under us!  There was noise and shaking and whoa!  Yes, an earthquake.  Five minutes later it was showing up on the Christchurch quake map, as a magnitude 4 earthquake, centered about 5 miles away.  Hmmm, not so sure about this wonderful city.  Christchurch has literally had 11,000 (not a typo) earthquakes since 2010, which has made healing difficult for those that experienced the two big ones.  Well, it’s a different way to spend Christmas eve!

As in Auckland, our first week in Christchurch was spent circling the outskirts.  Yesterday we got bold and ventured downtown on  a very lovely day.  First we went to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, which are right next door to the Central Business District (CBD).  The gardens are surrounded by a very large park.  The gardens seem to blend seamlessly into the park, with lots of open grassy areas and the most astounding collection of HUGE trees, including a sequoia.  Given the size of the trees, I just don’t understand how they’re still standing after the two earthquakes.  The shrubs, too, were enormous.  Rhododendron trees – not bushes.  Next to the garden is a large swimming pool, much like Spruce Pool in Boulder, and although it was around 60 degrees, it was filled with splashing kids.

We then wandered a block toward the CBD.  As you may know, in Sept 2010, there was a large earthquake just west of Christchurch.  It happened in the middle of the night and no one was hurt but it did topple many unstable structures.  Our landlord lost both chimneys on his house.  He said this first earthquake was probably a mixed blessing, as it may have brought down the most unstable structures.  But then it probably significantly weakened others.

The second earthquake occurred in February 2011, around lunchtime, and was very shallow and had a higher “peak ground acceleration” than even the Haiti earthquake.  Both our landlord’s home and this little apartment are slated for razing, as the foundations of both have been weakened beyond repair.

It’s very hard to imagine the level of destruction until you wander around the CBD.  It is a mix of empty or rubble filled lots, empty high rise buildings waiting to be brought down, or construction sites with huge cranes towering above.  It appears that they want to save the facades of some of the older buildings, so they have stacked up shipping containers on the sidewalks to prop up the facade, when there is nothing but rubble behind.

But amidst all of this mess, someone had the bright idea to form a new shopping area right in the CBD using shipping containers.  So imagine the Pearl Street Mall made up of brightly colored shipping containers stacked on one another.  This ReStart Mall is amazing.  It was filled with shoppers, eaters, drinkers, buskers, and tourists, all out very much enjoying the day.  They’ve moved trendy shops, bars and small eateries into these shipping containers, where they have cut out some of the sides and put in plate glass sides.  All very cheerful and fun.  I would have to say that both the gardens/park and the CBD were very vibrant and busy, in the middle of this major destruction/construction zone.  Humans sure can be resilient when pushed.

We didn’t get down to see the old church, which was partially destroyed, or the temporary cardboard cathedral which was built to replace it until a new home is found.  Be sure to google it.  And we hope to get to the Canterbury Museum on the grounds of the Botanic Gardens.  But we’ll be around here for a while longer, so these are still on the list.

We’ve been in Auckland for almost 2 weeks now.  They describe Auckland as a “supercity”, as at some point some surrounding suburbs were incorporated into the city.  So it now has almost 1.4 million people, an astonishing 1/3 of the entire population of the country.  The first week we spent dabbling around the outer Auckland regions, as Spencer figured out how to drive on “the Other” side of the road.  It seemed like a nice, livable city but with rather drab architecture (basically no identifiable style).  We finally ventured into the Central Business District, the “CBD” earlier this week and I was very surprised how nice it is.

The first day we started down Queen Street, basically the main drag, and then veered off to see the University of Auckland.  The campus was really lovely, about 2 blocks from the CBD.  The next day we ventured further down Queen Street to the harbor, which is really spectacular.  The CBD’s skyscrapers were strangely very nicely done and they had spruced up the harbor area a number of years ago for the Rugby World Cup.  There was an enormous cruise ship anchored there, and a marina filled with eye-popping boats.  It was a lovely place to walk, and there were a number of outdoor cafes/restaurants in which to enjoy the view and nice weather.

We then hopped on one of the ferries to head across the harbor to Devonport, a nice, touristy little village about 15 minutes from downtown.  We walked up Mt. Victoria and at the top, we had a wonderful 360 degree view of the harbor, downtown and harbor islands.  From that view, you could see that if you stood the cruise ship on end, it was actually larger than some of the largest downtown skyscrapers.

It’s bigger than the buildings.

Auckland is also amazingly diverse – absolutely not white-bread Boulder.  This means that there are stores and restaurants of every conceivable nature and ethnicity.  We head to the South Island on Tuesday and I’m curious to see if this holds true

Auckland skyline

Barb asked me to up a video of the panorama from the top of Mount Victoria.

Water water everywhere.

We’ve now been here at Voli Voli for about 5 days.  Our days consist of an early start, off to the dive boat, 2 dives and then back for lunch and a nap.  Then back in the water to splash around, then into the pool for more splashing around, dinner and bed.  So eat, dive, eat, sleep, swim,eat, sleep.  We’ve both observed that if you weren’t diving and if you didn’t want to read a book on the beach, there wouldn’t be much to do here in paradise.  We’re a long way from the nearest small town, with no car.  But the diving is keeping us very entertained and the underwater life we’re seeing is astounding.  We have one more day of diving tomorrow and might  be the only divers on the boat.