February 21 - Sheepdogs and Earthquakes

Last night we sailed further south to the port of Akaroa.  The weather since we landed in New Zealand has been great.  The temperatures have been in the mid to high twenties with very low humidity.  It has been sunny every day.  Unfortunately, New Zealand is undergoing a drought.  It has been several months since they had any measurable rainfall.  It shows, as most of the grass has now turned to a burnt brown colour.  The Pacific ocean has been also been very calm, with waves only two metres or less.

Akaroa is a small fishing and retirement village.  It does not have a large enough pier for cruise ships, so we must tender into the port.  This can be a slow process and they recommend that you plan for a thirty-minute delay.  The reason we stop here is that the port in Christchurch is still under reconstruction from the earthquakes they suffered several years ago.

When we purchased our excursion for today, we didn’t completely read the description.  We had wanted to go to Christchurch but when we went to book that excursion it was fully booked.  There was a second excursion called Christchurch and the Countryside.  So, without reading the itinerary, I assumed it was a trip to Christchurch and a scenic ride through the countryside.  Wrong!  The countryside was a trip to a sheep farm for a shearing demonstration and the visit to Christchurch was a very short duration.  Not exactly what we had envisioned.

Our trip to the farm was very scenic.  We had to go over Mount Herbert, which is a 920m volcanic mountain with spectacular vistas.  The roadway was very narrow and the drop seemed rather precarious.

Our stop at the sheep ranch was way far more interesting than I thought it would be.  It started with a  sheep herding demonstration.  The dogs were the stars of the show as they charged up the mountain and directed a flock of sheep down into their pens.  We then went into the barn, where one of the lambs was sheared. The lady who did the shearing said that she was able shear up to 200 sheep in a day.  The demonstration was followed by a morning tea in the rancher’s home.

We then drove through a village called Little River.  There we passed a hotel that was made up of old  grain silos that had been converted into rooms.  It was very strange but very unique

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Next we entered the city of Christchurch.  I was not prepared for the devastation that I saw.  

On Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12.51 p.m. Christchurch was badly damaged by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake, which killed 185 people and injured several thousand. The earthquake epicentre was near Lyttelton, just 10 kilometres south-east of Christchurch’s central business district. 

The earthquake occurred more than five months after the 4 September 2010 earthquake.   Our tour guide / bus driver is a resident of Christchurch and he said the first quake softened up everything and second one did all the damage.

One hundred and eighty five people died as a result of the 22 February earthquake. It was lunchtime and many people were on the city streets. One hundred and fifteen died in the office tower that housed the local television station when it totally collapsed.  Many heritage buildings were heavily damaged, including the Anglican Christchurch Cathedral. Among the modern buildings damaged, and eventually demolished, was Christchurch’s tallest building, the Hotel Grand Chancellor.

Christchurch’s central business district remained cordoned off for more than two years after the earthquake. Over a quarter of the buildings in the central business district were demolished.  

We were dropped off in the central business district and during our walk down Worcester Blvd we noticed that most of the buildings are still in serious disrepair and not occupied. The Anglican Christchurch Cathedral takes your breath away when you see the extent of the damage. The Anglican church wants to demolish the ruins, but the city’s heritage council wants it repaired.  So, after nine years no work has been done and the church sits in a desolate state.

Our bus driver talked about the effect of the liquefaction on the ground.  Eastern sections of Christchurch were built on a former swamp. The shaking turned water-saturated layers of sand and silt beneath the surface into sludge that squirted upwards through cracks. Properties and streets were buried in thick layers of silt, and water and sewage from broken pipes flooded streets. House foundations cracked and buckled, wrecking many homes. On his street, which is in the suburbs, it took months to remove all the sand and mud that rose up to the ground.  

On the day of the earthquake the driver was returning passengers to their cruise ship.  The pier he was parked on sank over a foot.  He said he set a speed record in backing up his bus and getting off the pier.

Electricity was restored to 75% of the city within three days, but water supplies and sewerage systems took several years to restore in some areas affected by liquefaction.

Christ's College occupied many buildings in the affected district and most of its building are now occupied again.

One of the positive results of this disaster was that there are many new buildings with modern architecture and the construction trades are fully employed.  It was a very quiet return trip to the ship.

The show in the ship’s theater was Susanne Prentice.  She is a performer that sings country and western, with a bit of 60s female artists, such Cilla Black, thrown in for good measure.

For dinner Marg had roast turkey and I had turbot. Again, we were the last table to leave the dinning room.  We enjoy each other’s company, especially over a glass of port.