Meeting old friends and making new ones

16 August 2013

One thing I forgot to say yesterday was that when we were on the bus from the Tannery we had the front seat. A lady got in, looked at us, smiled, and said: “Mother and daughter?”

We laughed and said: “Yes.”

“Ah. I thought so. You were either that or friends.”

“We’re both.”

This morning we had to pack all our gear. I think I’ve asked this before. “How come it’s so difficult to fit everything into your bag for going home, when it’s the same stuff, or maybe even less, than you had leaving?” I ended up putting one of D.C.’s jumpers (which she hasn’t needed) into my case so that she could close hers. I had to extend my case to do so!

When we left the room we asked the operator if we could leave our cases and the big parcel there. They were quite happy for us to do that, so we were able to go around Christchurch unencumbered.

We decided to follow a brochure we’d got that showed historic buildings of Christchurch. It’s quite interesting in itself in that it has notes like: “Under repair” and “Damaged in earthquake.” So we’d find a historic building or location, photograph it, and then photograph the appropriate page in the book as a reference. You can do that with digital cameras.

A good many of the places we saw we’d already seen, but hadn’t known their history. Some were of a style we see at home – the workers’ houses are like Thames miners’ huts – but others were unique to Christchurch – like the last remaining provincial buildings in the country. These particular examples show how the town of Christchurch grew and prospered. At first they were built out of wood, then later buildings were made out of stone. It was the stone buildings that received the most damage in the quakes. “Wood is good.”

We were looking at the old bridge club that used to be the ** when the man who was working inside invited us in. They’re converting it into a photography studio and hope to have it completed in a year. They are keeping the essence, while making it functional. And D.C. discovered that the water isn’t turn on yet.

We went to the museum because we knew there were toilets there. There aren’t many in central Christchurch now. The only public ones we found were in and behind the museum and in the Re:Start Mall.

I took 445 photos today, and I will upload a selection later, but just now I’m only going to upload three.

The first you may, as we did, think are the remains of some building that was irretrievably wrecked in one of the quakes, but you’d be wrong. If anything, these are the result of an even greater tragedy than one wrought by Mother Nature just doing her thing. This is the result of men who perceived themselves to be battling an evil that could only be stopped by drastic action. An action that spiralled out of control and resulted in thousands of deaths all around the world. None of those deaths can be called just.

These beams are from the World Trade Center. The sculpture is A Tribute to Firefighters and is located in the Firefighters’ Reserve next to the Central Fire Station. The five steel girders weigh 5.5 tons and were originally part of the 102^nd floor of the World Trade Center Tower Two. They were gifted by the City of New York to the City of Christchurch “for use in a public art work to honour all firefighters worldwide.” The sculpture was unveiled to mark the beginning of the 2002 Seventh World Firefighter’s Games in Christchurch.

My second photo is of the few memorials at the CTV site today. Ours was still there, and had been joined by a small bouquet on our brochure’s left (in the photo).

We found the PGC site today too. For some reason the CTV site had been pointed out to us, but not the PGC. All that is there is a grassed area and planters similar to those at the CTV site, plus the sign saying that the Council was working on what was going to be the most appropriate memorial to those who died in the building on February 22^nd 2011.

After our walk we went back to the motel and I got a txt from Mary to say that she would be there in half an hour. I tried to send her a text in reply telling her where we were and that we were in no hurry, when she rang and I was able to give her the details without going through each letter of the alphabet. (Hey, I’m an emailer, not a txter!)

It was good to see her and we loaded our gear in the car, but didn’t get the chance to say thank you to the motel management. We must remember to send them an email.

It was a good trip out to Rangiora and the scenery is definitely different to Christchurch – more intact.

The boys, Felix and Lukas, were keen to rip into the box and probably got as much enjoyment making the bubblewrap to make it all pop as they did out of the carpark… but I think the carpark will give enjoyment for longer. The cats took one look at us and gave us a wide berth. Marcus cooked a very tasty meal.

Lukas showed us his impressive coin collection and we got to experience the sight and sound of Felix’s bubblewrap dance. And we all had a good chat.

It was an enjoyable evening.