Hi ho, silver lining

Today the country fell silent at 12.51pm, one week since the earthquake split Christchurch history into Before and After. Except it didn't, really - fall silent, that is. Watching it on TV I could hear, outside and in the places shown on screen, camera shutters clicking, mobile phones going off, cars driving past, the guy next door continuing to clear out his garage. Tch. It would have been nice if someone had thought to ring our church bell to join in with the others around the country. At least the school over the road was quiet.

So it could have been more solemn. I'm sure it was in Christchurch, aftershocks permitting. There was a surprise there today, a pleasant one: the discovery, in the broken-off plinth of Godley's statue, of a broken glass bottle containing a rolled parchment, and a sealed copper cylinder. Time capsules! Always fun, and especially welcome at the moment. The great hope is that it will be a kind of message from John Robert himself, an inspiration from the original founder to those now faced with starting Christchurch over again. Hopefully not a laundry list.

The Museum people must be feeling the buzz. Not only did their building come through relatively unscathed, but they now have their hands on, literally, a piece of history that promises to be of enormous symbolic value to the city.

That top photo wasn't taken in the Botanical Gardens, by the way, or at a private house: it was outside a factory. Christchurch is The Garden City, and Christchurch people like things to be neat and pretty. Sigh.

NZ Roadtrip Christchurch: cracks, cones and cathedral

It's a bit odd, coming to your home town as a tourist. In the case of Christchurch, that's somewhat less the case since the city is superficially so very much changed, post-earthquakes, from the place I grew up in - though still itself, underneath. Well, not literally underneath - that's where all the fault lines and lurking liquefaction lie - but in the parts that weren't so much affected by the shakes. So that's not my side of the city, where I was astonished to see entire suburbs completely gone, just the road network and garden trees remaining: so disorientating that I got lost just blocks from where my former home still (fortunately) stands, apparently unharmed.

The roads are still bumpy, there are still ranks of cones everywhere, and the Cathedral is still its sad self, crumbling, open to the elements and the depredations of pigeons, its future still, after five years, undecided. But. There's a lot that's new too, and exciting, and fun. The clanking old trams are running frequently, their drivers maintaining an impressive level of enthusiasm in their continuous commentaries, the re:START mall of converted container shops is colourful and buzzing (and serving excellent food - pulled pork and beans taco, yum!), and there's lots to do.

The Christchurch Pass ($80) bought us entry to first of all the gondola up the Port Hills, the easy way up to a view (though I watched a man hiking up the Bridle Path with a toddler on his back) over the city to the mountains, and over Lyttelton Harbour. There's a Time Tunnel thing included, which is slightly naff, but ends with a rather touching message about the future from a young girl.

The second element is a punt ride along the Avon through the Botanic Gardens: half an hour of - well, not peace, there were too many people enjoying the river for that - but interest and colour, and fun. Our punter (?) was full of information  - I never knew the the city's weeping willows are all descendants of the tree that grew over Napoleon's grave on St Helena - and skilled at propelling the punt (unlike the *cough* Chinese trio in the canoe ahead of us, doggedly zigzagging from bank to bank). I liked that two ladies sitting on a park bench called out to us, "Are you enjoying our city?"

The third part of the Pass was the tram ride. There is a dining tram for what I imagine would be a pretty bumpy - but very good, I'm told - dinner; but we tried several other places during our stay. Casa Publica in pretty, restored New Regent Street does a fabulous made-at-the-table guacamole; the Friday Food Trucks are less elegant, but the vibe was reminiscent of my youth's Friday nights in the city when the shops were open till 9pm! Best of all was Protocol, at the end of Colombo Street: pulled beef cheek on mash. Delicious.

We were up that end because our Airbnb place was up in Dyer's Pass Road, a grand old dame that the owners had bought as an insurance write-off, and were restoring. They have some way to go, but are full of the determined enthusiasm that kind of defines Christchurch now (if you overlook the worn-down depression that's resulted for many from insurance disputes and painfully slow progress).

But let's not finish on a low note: Christchurch is still a lovely city with much to offer and enjoy - Museum, Botanic Gardens, lively restaurant scene, shops, exciting renovations underway along the river, at the Arts Centre, Town Hall, pop-ups... It's a city just full of splendid sights.

Four years

It's been a hot, dry summer and Thursday morning was another in a long series of blue-sky days. It was the kind of weather that makes water-blasting the house seem like a treat, compared with, for example, mowing the lawns or weeding. So that was how it happened that I was up close with the window frames and noticed that here and there the paintwork is starting to show sun damage. And although I struggle to remember where I've left my phone or what I had for dinner last night, I know exactly how long it is since the painter was here: four years.

Because four years ago today, he and I were standing in my living room at lunchtime, watching in disbelief and horror the pictures coming from Christchurch, my home town. Christchurch, reduced by a 6.3 earthquake at 12.51pm to a cracked and broken disaster zone where 185 people died, instantly or slowly, in nightmarish scenarios that seconds earlier had been boringly mundane: office, shop, bus. Christchurch, the Garden City, more English than England, a place of wide tree-lined avenues and willows dipping into the placid Avon River, stately mock-Gothic public buildings, neat parks and gardens, and an iconic Cathedral smaller than many English parish churches but truly the heart of the city. In just a couple of terrifying minutes, it became - and has remained - unrecognisable, buildings collapsed, towers leaning, roads cracked and manhole covers risen up, stinking grey liquefaction seeping everywhere like ectoplasm, and everybody's lives changed forever.

In the four years since, progress has been made in resurrecting the city, although shamefully slowly. Whole areas, like where I grew up and first went to school, have been abandoned to nature while new suburbs have sprung up on the western, safer side of the city. The CBD, though still characterised by too many bare blocks of dusty gravel, is taking new shape, coming to life, drawing back the people. John Robert Godley's statue has just been put up again in the Square, though it's a bit damaged and faces a cathedral still in ruins with a future under threat. In some areas, you wouldn't know anything had ever happened - except when you speak to the people living there. Even those who escaped major damage to their homes still see their lives as split into Before and After, and that will never change.

The old Christchurch has gone. The new Christchurch will be a different place: newer, flatter, lower, more spacious. Eventually the ruined suburbs will be attractive parkland. The remaining heritage buildings will be stronger and more valued. Will the Cathedral be one of them? I do hope so. Abandoned by the Church, it's up to the people to save it, which is how it should be.

And then there are the 185 lives lost: all ages, all sorts of nationalities, residents and visitors, some suddenly, some agonisingly slowly in unimaginable terror. They will always be remembered, and not only at the memorial that will be built in time for the next anniversary, beside the Avon as it glides slowly to the sea.

Daaa, da da, da-da dah...

Wow. One whole year since the first Canterbury earthquake and the end of normal life for everybody living there. Though it was a shock (sorry) at the time, to discover that there were fault lines where no-one had ever suspected them before, what's been more dismaying for all of us since last September 4th is to find that a big earthquake like that 7.1 isn't always a one-off spectacular - it can also be the pilot of a series. A long, long series that, fingers crossed, won't end up taking on the longevity of something like Coronation Street.

A new video of the Christchurch Red Zone shows a city that's almost unrecognisable: full of empty spaces, fenced-off pavements in front of crumbling terraces full of cracks and holes, rough unsealed roads, crooked buildings, heart-breakingly familiar Christchurch icons like the Cathedral all in pieces, surrounded by piles of rubble and propped up with girders - and every so often something apparently completely unscathed, like the tall glass BNZ building, or the Millennium Chalice that looks so delicate. And not one person anywhere.

The only good news from that first quake was that no-one died. I've read that hundreds of times - but in fact someone did that day, of a heart attack undoubtedly caused by the stress. Now that the aftershock count - including the biggies on 22 February and 13 June - is up to 8529, including a 5.1 on Friday and a 3.3 today, it wouldn't be in the least surprising to learn that Christchurch's collective heart is failing. But it's not, it can't, and it won't. Kia kaha, Christchurch.

Three years on from 6.3

Wow, it's three years today since the earthquake that wrecked Christchurch, when Scott the house-painter put down his brush and came inside to watch the astonishing, incredible, horrifying news on TV with me on a hot, sunny afternoon. The quake killed 185 people, not just Kiwis but visitors and students from the Philippines, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel, Turkey, the USA, Canada and Ireland; the oldest was a woman of 88, the youngest babies of 5 weeks and 8 months. It also wrecked the lives of everyone who lived in the city, some temporarily, most long-term, others forever; and no-one in the country remains untouched. Either they know someone who died or, this being the land of 2 Degrees, someone who knows someone who died. Then there are those of us still mourning the loss of the city we knew and loved; and those whose sense of physical security in this faultline-riddled country is now as fractured as all those heritage buildings.

Canterbury's had more than 12,000 after-shocks, most of them piddling but enough magnitude 4+ to keep nerves frayed. The city is full of empty blocks blowing with dust, the roads are still lumpy and littered with orange cones, whole suburbs are vacant, too many people are still waiting for insurance claims to be settled, and the arguments continue over the fate of Christ Church Cathedral, and where to place the blame for the CTV building's collapse.

But life there continues too, and there is plenty of optimism and enthusiasm for the new Christchurch that is - so slowly - starting to take shape. It will be very different from what was there before, and it will be unashamedly new, but also greener, more spacious, more people-friendly. That's the plan, anyway. Right now it's neither one thing nor the other: impossible when you're there to picture it as it was, hard to imagine how it will be. The connections with the old Christchurch, my home town, are for me now mostly memories with little concrete left to anchor them to (actually, lots and lots of concrete, altogether too dominant). I do so wish the earthquake hadn't happened.

In a week's time, though, the news will be all about Japan and Fukushima, also marking their third anniversary of disaster, on so much greater a scale, and the focus will shift away. Meanwhile, in Christchurch, the weeds will keep growing through the cracked foundations of ordinary people's lives.

Kia kaha, New Zealand

Shit. I never wanted to be right about this. 

This afternoon a scumbag armed himself up with an illegal semi-automatic rifle and shot dead 41 people - men, women and small children - in a mosque on one side of Christchurch, and then killed seven in another mosque a few kilometres away. Currently there are 48 people in hospital with gunshot wounds, one of whom has died. So today 49 people were killed while peacefully going to Friday prayers. In Christchurch. In New Zealand. By terrorism.

I've written so often in this blog about places I've been to that have suddenly been all over the news because of mass shootings - no need to list them, you know them as well as I do - and I've said more than once, with no smugness, but unease, that if terrorists really wanted everyone in the world to feel afraid, they should stage an attack in New Zealand, because that would prove that nowhere is safe. And that's exactly what's happened - the greatest ever loss of life here not caused by a natural disaster.

The perpetrator, whose name we all know but no-one is using, was all over Facebook with a 37-page manifesto in which he said just what I did. He'd come here FROM AUSTRALIA to plan and prepare his attack, and it was only then that he realised we would be the ideal target, for exactly that reason. Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, put it very well this evening: 

"We, New Zealand, we were not a target because we are a safe harbour for those who hate.

We were not chosen for this act of violence because we condone racism, or because we are an enclave for extremism.

We were chosen for the very fact that we are none of those things.

Because we represent diversity, kindness, compassion. A home for those who share our values. Refuge for those who need it. And those values will not and cannot be shaken by this attack.

We are a proud nation of more than 200 ethnicities, 160 languages. And amongst that diversity we share common values. And the one that we place the currency on right now is our compassion and support for the community of those directly affected by this tragedy.

And secondly, the strongest possible condemnation of the ideology of the people who did this.

You may have chosen us – we utterly reject and condemn you."

And you know what makes it even worse, if that's possible? That he chose to stage his attack in Christchurch. Just eight years after massive earthquakes wrecked the city and the lives of its people, who are still struggling with the aftermath, physical and mental. Poor, battered, brave Christchurch. My home town. 

Bastard.

Downhearted

Sigh. While thousands of people in the eastern suburbs of Christchurch wait, understandably less and less patiently, to find out if their suburb is on the list for clearance as henceforth uninhabitable, the verdict has been pronounced on both of the city's cathedrals. After Monday's double shake, Christ Church Cathedral in the Square, and the Roman Catholic cathedral in Barbados Street are both going to have to be demolished completely. The fancy Baroque Catholic one is beyond saving, but there's still some hope that the neo-Gothic Anglican one will be able to be taken down, the stonework saved - although the pretty Rose Window is now in bits after Monday.

What happens then it's still far too soon to say: reconstructed, or a new design entirely, something modern or reflecting what was lost - that's a decision that no-one is able even to think about right now. There have been 6,800 after-shocks since the September quake, and 15 since February that have been 5-plus, with no end in sight, so for most people their focus has shortened to just getting through each day.

After I went to Frankfurt and Mainz last month, where I was delighted to find that many of the pretty medieval houses I admired there and elsewhere in Germany were actually reconstructions after they were destroyed in bombing during the war, I facilely thought that that could be the way for Christchurch to go: putting back up replicas of all the character buildings that everyone loved, and never mind highfaluting ideals like architectural honesty. But at least the war ended, full stop, in 1945 and the rebuilding could begin with confidence.

Canterbury's seismic activity is such an unknown, possibly continuing for no-one knows how long, that thinking about any sort of future for Christchurch is getting harder and harder.

And just to destroy entirely anyone's faith in the benevolence of Mother Nature, people trying to leave Christchurch by air have been trapped at the airport by ash from the volcano currently erupting in Chile. I think we've all got it by now, Earth: you're in charge.

Rise Up Christchurch*

It's been three months now since the Christchurch earthquake. The figures are appalling: $15 billion in losses and costs, making it proportionally twice as costly as Japan's quake and tsunami. In the central city there are 900 buildings to be demolished; in the suburbs, over 200,000 badly damaged homes. There are 300 km of broken sewers. And then there are the 185 people who died, and those who've had limbs amputated and other serious injuries.

There was a telethon on TV, the usual thing with celebrities doing silly things and urging viewers to donate, which they did; and there were also heartening accounts of survival, endurance and community spirit. Everyone has ideas about how to rebuild the city, and right now the main feeling is for low-rise, naturally enough with memories of the CTV and PGG buildings so fresh. It looks as though there's going to be some spirited debate about the Cathedral and the other signature buildings that everyone knew and loved: rebuild as they were, or replace?

There seems to be an idea that to put them back as they were would be architecturally dishonest and unimaginative, especially as they were anyway only mock-Gothic, built in the second half of the 19th century; and that the result would be fake. But that's what they did in Germany, when they lost so much of so many cities. Most of what I was delighted by and took photos of last week was reproduction, rebuilt in the 1950s and later to look medieval, reconstructions of buildings that had been destroyed. Evidently much of those half-timbered frontages with their decorated plaster and slate roofs are literally facades, with modern buildings behind. Is that dishonest?

There are plenty of new buildings, towers of glass and concrete, that architects presumably took pride in designing - but they aren't what I wanted to record in photographs; and they aren't what would have given the citizens comfort and reassurance after they had lost so much during the war. I do so hope that the people who rebuild Christchurch give at least equal weight to emotion, as to intellect.

* I'm afraid I don't know who to credit for this amazing photo taken from the Port Hills of the city at the moment of the 22 February earthquake, when Christchurch history split instantly into Before and After.

Broken

This is the statue of John Robert Godley that stands opposite the front of Christchurch Cathedral. Stood. It's now on the ground, broken, covered in dust from the collapse of the cathedral spire which lies in pieces scattered over the steps in front of the building. The cross from the very top lies in the rubble, still attached to part of the tip of the spire, 8 metres of it that was rebuilt in 1888 after an earthquake. Though the copper-green of the replacement was in startling contrast to the grey of the rest of the spire, it was such a familiar sight that people forgot what it signified. They'll remember now.

Godley was the founder of Canterbury and oversaw the establishment of Christchurch in 1850, so it's symbolic that his statue has been toppled from its base. It's not destroyed, though, and it will be restored. It's too soon to think about what will happen to the Cathedral and all the other historic and beautiful buildings that have been wrecked, though it seems inevitable that many of them will have to be removed completely.

At the moment the focus is of course on rescuing the people who are still trapped inside collapsed buildings, and on identifying the dead - 75 so far with 300 reported missing. Then it will be important to shore up the nerves of Christchurch residents, which have been shattered by 4000 aftershocks in the last 6 months, and now this (officially also an aftershock). And of course no-one knows what else may be in store for the city.

It's kind of ironic, but also maybe helpful to think about, that last weekend was the annual Art Deco Weekend celebration in Napier. It was bigger than usual, the 80th anniversary: in 1931 the city was totally destroyed, with 256 deaths, in a 7.8 earthquake, but was rebuilt in the style of the day, Art Deco. Now it's a unique, beautiful and interesting place that tourists flock to and where the earthquake disaster has been turned around into a yearly commemoration that unites the city. One day, I hope that's how it will be for Christchurch.

Sigh

The cake is made and decorated, the tree is up and there's a promising swag of pressies underneath it, the epic final assault on the supermarket has been made with success as regards the strawberries (TV news reporting a threatened shortage this year, sparking panic buying in this household at least), the pavlova-making is scheduled, the last-minute asap-deadline of 40 short Australian stories for a website has been met with the promise of a thrillingly generous reward, the weather's come right, delivering sunshine and heat - what could stop this Christmas from being another corker?

More earthquakes in Christchurch, that's what. Four yesterday between 5 and 6 points, shallow and sharp, more liquefaction throughout the eastern suburbs where I used to live, some building collapses, more damage to the already wrecked Cathedral, some minor injuries and, unsurprisingly, heart problems, closed airport, evacuated malls on one of the busiest shopping days of the year - and lots more people deciding that they've had it, they can't take any more. The timing is so cruel, after months of quietness, everyone beginning to hope that it was all over, putting it out of their minds, focusing on Christmas and summer holidays; and now all that's in ruins, shattered like the glass balls on the toppled Christmas trees in homes throughout the city.

It seems very unfair. Yes, other places round the world have suffered much, much worse this year in all sorts of ways, so 185 dead and a bunch of broken buildings is comparatively not much to complain about. But the way it's going in Christchurch is almost like torture: sudden pain, then it's over, but the possibility and fear of more remain, then more pain, then fear, then pain, then fear, then a long respite and the beginning of real hope, then pain again. It's ruinous to the spirit, and especially at a time of year when everyone looks forward to family and fun and being at ease mentally and physically. I do so feel for all those people outside - and inside - their houses right this minute, shovelling stinking silt yet again; and I understand if they feel they can't go on any more.

On the other hand, though, this isn't the Christchurch any more that was so shocked by the first quake in September last year: the city's got systems in place to sort power and water and roads without delay; pretty much everything that can fall down, has fallen down already; the people have water stores, gumboots ready, ornaments Blu-tacked in place. They'll come on through, and they will have a good Christmas. And, afterwards, only some of them will leave.

After Christchurch: what I think

I grew up in Christchurch. I’m old, so it was through the 1960s and ‘70s. It was a very white, monocultural city then. I remember, when I was about 14, being so delighted and astonished to hear a couple (of tourists) speaking French as they walked along Colombo Street and through the Square, that I followed them closely, shamelessly eavesdropping on a language I’d just started to learn, thrilled and amazed to hear it being used so casually.

I was at least fortunate to go to Avonside Girls’ High where our roll included students from all over the country who attended Te Wai Pounamu girls’ boarding college. So we had a strong Maori presence at school, which was unusual for Christchurch; and I was a member of the Maori Club, learning action and poi songs, which I can still sing along to now.

But that was the limit, as far as non-English cultural contact went. It was only the sainted OE that brought me into contact with other nationalities and ethnicities – starting with my first taste of Parmesan cheese, in an Italian restaurant in Sydney, in 1973. I’ve come a long way since then.

Now I’ve been fortunate to have travelled to every continent, and been in contact with most major ethnic groups, as well as some very small ones. It’s been fascinating and enlightening, surprising and rewarding, mind-opening - and reassuring. Because of course I’ve discovered that everyone, all over the world, is pretty much the same.

The clothes, customs, religion, architecture and superficial appearances differ, and thank goodness for that. I remember the Blue Mink song that came out in 1970, ‘Melting Pot’, which said “What we need is a great big melting pot… turning out coffee-coloured people by the score” and at the time I thought how that would solve so many problems.

Now, though, I think how boring that would be. Not the brown people bit – to be honest, I think mixed-race people are the most attractive of all of us – but the cultural amalgamation that’s implied. It’s the differences that make the world interesting, worth travelling to witness, our own domestic lives richer when those cultures are brought into our own country.

I love that New Zealand is now one of the most ethnically diverse in the world. I enjoy going to a coffee shop and hearing lots of different languages being spoken as we all enjoy our flat whites. I like seeing saris and the hijab and lavalava being worn around the streets. I think it’s great that kids at primary school learn everybody’s different greetings and important days.

And I hate those who want to get rid of it all, to go back in time to when we were so limited, and our lives so narrow and pale and dull. I hate their ill-founded self-importance, their bigotry, their self-deluded sense of superiority, their retrogression, their ignorance. I’m sorry that their lives are so impoverished – but I’m glad that they are in the minority and that they will be pushed aside, and they will not get their way. We are moving on towards our rich, colourful future, and they will be left behind. No-one will miss them.

Cheering links

We're good with this now, aren't we, regular 😃 reader? Coincidences are standard, connections are daily occurrences, nothing to see here, right? [Er, see here, right.]

Today, it's the announcement that  a weapon-detecting AI system is to be installed in the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch that was the site of the first terror attack on 15 March. It's the first time in the world that it will be used in a place of worship. It was invented in San Francisco - actually, Silicon Valley, so more accurately that would be San Jose - and is already in use in public spaces and (sigh) schools in the US. It apparently notifies authorities within seconds if it identifies a threat.

Since the March attacks, an organisation called Keep Mosques Safe has been set up, and it's they who are funding it for Christchurch. And where is KMS based? In Qatar, where it was the initiative of the chief executive and founder of Al-Ameri International Trading. I'm a bit vague about the function of the company but, now that I've (just!) been to Qatar, I can easily believe it has both enormous funds at its disposal, and some forward-thinking and generous people behind it.

So, Christchurch, San Jose and Qatar, all coming together in a tidy and beneficial bundle.It's very satisfying, and goes a small way towards mitigating what has become, routinely, the spirit-sapping ordeal of reading the world, and domestic, news.

Such very, very bad news

There's just been another earthquake in Christchurch. This time 6.3, less powerful than September's 7.1, but closer to the city centre and shallower, so the damage is very much worse - also the buildings were weakened. This time it was the middle of the day, not the night, and people have been trapped in and under collapsing buildings, and there have been many deaths. They've run out of ambulances and the hospital has been evacuated.

The news and pictures are still coming through from pale reporters with wobbly voices: blood-soaked people are struggling to get out of the city, on grid-locked streets knee-deep in liquefaction and mains water, around avalanches of bricks and concrete, through clouds of dust and aftershocks. I'm horrified and shocked and fearful of the details that are going to emerge.

But already, to see the Cathedral, the heart of Christchurch, without its spire is utterly, utterly heart-breaking. This is my home town.

                                                *******

This lovely building, home to Christchurch's daily paper, has partially collapsed: the upper left-hand section is now missing, the roof has fallen inside and at this very moment there are people trapped under their desks, under the rubble, on the third floor. I do hope Ken isn't among them. He's a big man, he wouldn't have been able to move fast.

This is the Provincial Council Chambers building, clearly already badly damaged, and now the stone part is just rubble. It's just one of many, many heritage buildings, all old friends, that have reportedly suffered severe damage.

But what about the people? There are hundreds and hundreds still trapped in the rubble of so many buildings, old and new, locals and tourists and young foreign students. The news that's to come hardly bears thinking about.

Mellow

Perfect, perfect day today: clear, sunny, warm after early freshness, the colours bright and saturated. And on a Sunday, too! It was perhaps especially precious having come straight after what the media are in the habit these days of excitably calling a 'weather bomb', the word 'storm' apparently not dramatic enough any more. It was more of a damp squib (always want to say damp squid) here in Auckland, a bit of wind and rain that blew a bucket across the back lawn - but further south in Taranaki, where I went in November, it really was very violent and ripped the roofs off many houses and punched holes in walls with flying fence posts. Nothing on the scale of the terrifying tornadoes in the US, but bad enough for us, who've had more than enough lately in the way of natural disasters.

Where do I go from here? I could focus on Taranaki, and my Parihaka story, because I was at a meeting a couple of days ago that was addressed by some people from Maori Tourism, that began with an unexpected reference to flatulence and moved smartly on to some fairly abstract concepts and included a lot more te reo than I was expecting or, to be honest, understood (to my shame). Thank goodness I wasn't MCing, the person who was fortunately much more fluent in public-occasion Maori than I could dream of being. The atmosphere was very friendly and down-to-earth, but there were some delicate matters glanced over that it would have been good to be able to talk about properly: like Maori people getting tetchy when offenders are called Maori in news reports, that being a term that they don't really use themselves, identifying much more with their tribes. Fair enough - though 'Caucasian' is just as general, of course.

Or I could branch off from the disasters reference to say how appalled I am that the Bishop of Christchurch has just announced the decision to pull the cathedral down as it's too expensive to try to repair what is now a dangerously unstable building. It's very hard not to come over all xenophobic and say that it's because she's a Canadian, in the job only 3 years, and doesn't understand what the cathedral means to the people of Christchurch and the country as a whole. Doesn't matter if you're Anglican or not, religious or not - that building is the heart and soul, symbol and icon of Christchurch and it has to be saved.

Or I could go with the weather, how lovely it was to be out in the garden unbitten by mozzies, doing some weeding in the hen run, much to the girls' delight (all those worms and other tasty insects revealed), remembering with nostalgia how a blitz like that back at our country cottage in England would have finished with a satisfying bonfire down in the paddock: happy hours of raking and poking, finally and reluctantly going back up to the house, thoroughly kippered. And, as I pulled out armful after armful of the crocosmias that have taken over the hen run, thinking how true it is that a weed is just a plant in the wrong place. Viz: this photo of the gardens at Muckross House in Killarney, Ireland, of crocosmia, in the right place.

Stuff Readers Rail Tour, Day 5 - Air and water

With thanks to Stuff Readers Rail Tour

Naturally, having been to the real thing, the activity offer this morning of the Antarctic Centre held no appeal, so instead I went to do something I'd never done before, despite growing up in Christchurch - kayaking along the Avon River. I went to Hagley Park to meet KT, who set up and runs ChCh Sea Kayaking. She's a real character, and the 3.5 hours I spent with her doing The Big Three tour were great fun. I should say Te Toru Nui, because she is proud of her Maori heritage and there was a Maori element running throughout, beginning with a karakia as we glided along the edge of the Botanic Gardens.

We'd clambered into the double kayak from a step she'd built herself opposite Christ's College, and which she protected from goose poo - "goose bombs" are a hazard on this activity. She'd done the safety briefing (try-hard Air NZ could learn a thing or two from her laid-back humour) and the guys in the other kayak and I felt perfectly at ease. It helps, of course, that the Avon is such a doddle, and we were going downstream on an outgoing tide - but there were distractions.

There were all the neat flowers, shrubs and trees of the Gardens, a bit of a hive of activity at the Boatshed, the tiny thrill of an even tinier set of rapids where the weir used to be, and then the sobering moment we drew alongside the Earthquake Memorial Wall. This marked our entry into the second sector of the Big Three - the city, and new territory for me since I had been punted through the Gardens before. It was really interesting to get a new angle on the city, to slide under the bridges (KT was big on testing echoes with loud cooees), look at the new and the old, the reconstructed and the still propped up, and to discover that there are eels right in the city centre.

We passed a Kate Shepherd memorial I'd never seen before ("That'll teach you guys to go to war and let us learn we can do stuff ourselves") and watched ducks with ducklings scooting across in front of us. We stopped when we got to the Margaret Mahy Playground, and got ourselves a good cup of coffee from the van there before heading off towards the third sector: the Red Zone. Here it got quieter, away from the traffic, and greener, as we passed through the suburbs that were so badly damaged in the earthquakes that the area has been completely cleared and won't be built on again. The gardens remain, though, so there are still trees and flowers, and bee hives, and walking/cycling tracks, and there are heartening plans for a recreational future.

It all looks so different that we passed the site of my school without my even noticing and before long at all were approaching the end of the tour at Kerr's Reach. There had been ducks, geese, swans, shags, eels, whitebaiters and whitebait; history, politics and opinion; some really great stories, and a lot of laughs. I thoroughly recommend a kayak with KT.

Returned by car to Hagley Park, I Ubered then out to the excellent Air Force Museum at Wigram, which was the official tour afternoon activity, and whisked around the professional displays inside the hangars. I especially enjoyed the Captured! section, which recreates the experience of a POW and includes lots of references to Stalag Luft III, with which regular readers 😀 will know I have a personal connection. And then that was it for today - good day. Thanks, Christchurch.

Stuff Readers Rail Tour, Day 4 - Green and silver, blue and gold

With thanks to Stuff Readers Rail Tour

There was some barely-concealed envy this morning, when those of us who had been consigned to what was clearly, to us, the inferior hotel, came to breakfast with the others. They thought they too had been somewhat hard done by - but there was no comparison. Not that our hotel was bad, just very ordinary, cramped and basic (that's Greymouth for you) - but we were already used to finer things. Spoiler alert: there would be compensation once the tour reached Mt Cook.

Back on the bus, we headed south, across the new bridge that replaces the country's last road and rail bridge (which must have astonished and horrified foreign tourists over the years) and came to Hokitika. We cruised through the town, past the driftwood name-sculpture on the beach, the clocktower roundabout, all the paua and greenstone shops, and along the river which was busy with dedicated whitebaiters.

Our destination was the Mahinapua Treetop Walk, a relatively new operation that is pretty flash. It's the usual elevated walkway, but it's 450m long with a 40m high (or 116 step) tower giving views from the mountains to the sea, and over Lake Mahinapua. It's well done and, from the lack of vibrations, well-built too - though I was glad they provided one cantilevered section for people who like a bit of movement (me) to feel a small thrill. There was lots of birdlife and song, some very tall rimu trees and, back at the cafê, good coffee.

Then we drove back to Greymouth to fill in some time before our next train trip. I have to say, it's a depressing place, tatty and unkempt, with its loveliest things the art and souvenirs inside the shops and galleries. The Grey River would be an asset, if it weren't necessary to hide it behind a high stop-bank. I walked along the top, spotting yet more hopeful whitebaiters, and was quite moved by the excellent memorial to mining deaths, more than a century of them, covered in names from the various disasters, and ending (I hope) with Pike River.

And then it was time to board the TranzAlpine train for our ride across the narrowest bit of the Mainland, through the Southern Alps to Christchurch. It was my second time aboard, the first a few years ago in summer, and I was hoping that this time there might be snow to enjoy - but not really, as it turned out. No matter: it's always a spectacular trip. First of all there's the subdued green and silver of the Coast, with misty Lake Brunner, and an area of untouched virgin bush that's so high and dense that calling it 'bush' is a real insult. The commentary is interesting - in 1908 the Blackball miners went on strike for a half-hour lunch break, an improvement on the fifteen minutes they'd been allowed in their ten-hour day! 

Then came the Otira tunnel, where a row of peeling houses looked dreary enough without our being told that in winter they get only two hours of sunshine a day - and 5m of rain a year. For the next 15 minutes we sat in the dark as we went through the 8.5km tunnel - 15 years to build, on a 1:33 incline - to emerge into glorious sunshine. 

We stopped briefly at Arthur's Pass, where this time there was no kea perching on the sign, and then continued through the golden tussock country to the dramatic Waimakariri Gorge, the blue of the river far below as we crossed a series of bridges and viaducts. 

The contrast with the other side of the Alps was stunning, and we chugged smugly across the farmland of the Canterbury Plains into Christchurch, my home town, where we were to spend two nights at the Commodore Hotel.