What a stark contrast to yesterday’s temperature at 08.00. This morning is more like a spring morning by comparison. Although the sun was fighting its way through the thicker cloud this morning it was substantially warmer than in the mountains at Arthurs Pass. The air was nearly as good as the view across Akaroa harbour as we took it in turns to wander up to the showers for morning ablutions. Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday, that a bunch of young Jonny foreigners tried hard to set light to the kitchens last night by overcooking some breaded chicken in one of the ovens! Fortunately, the smell had disappeared by breakfast and there was no sign of the young arsonists either. History was made today, in that with just one day left in the campervan, it was necessary to test the en-suite to its full capabilities this morning!
With everything packed up, disconnected, emptied and topped up, we were ready for the off. We had planned to go into Akaroa harbour and have a leisurely stroll around, as when we were last here, it was a bit of a rush as we had to met the coach pretty soon after taking our superb boat trip. Whilst the sun was not shining as brightly as on our last visit, it was still very warm and the sun was trying hard to get through the thickening cloud. We walked all along the harbour to the sailing club where a bunch of school kids had made a raft from oil drums and pallets all lashed together with nylon string and wishful thinking.
As they all clambered aboard, the raft seemed to sag somewhat in the middle, after which the teacher gave orders to abandon ship and some reconstruction work was clearly in order. There was a second bunch of kids, that were evidently more competent as nautical engineers, as they were already at sea and heading for a buoy a couple of hundred metres from shore.
We ventured up to the lighthouse for a Kodak moment and as we returned back past the sailing club, the reengineering had been successful as the kids were now away from shore and under paddle power. The others, were now round the buoy and heading back to base. There was not much evidence of the earthquake at Akaroa, but along the harbour a small shelter was minus all the roof tiles and a bridge that was built in 1865 had incurred some damage.
On returning to the van it was time to call into one of the myriad of tea rooms and get our morning dose of tea and coffee, not forgetting a muffin and slice of carrot cake – that’s between us not each!
With batteries recharged, we headed for our next destination, which was Little River, where we had stopped in the coach previously, but not had a chance to go into an art gallery, that looked quite interesting. After Little River we decided to head for Lyttleton on the South side of Christchurch, which is also a port town. We stopped for lunch at a little cove and followed the coastline round to Lyttleton. ON the way there was evidence of the earthquake where huge boulders had broken away from the hillsides and rolled down, smashing onto the roads. In some cases had the boulders may have gone through the roofs of houses in their path. From the size of some of the boulders, there is unlikely to be much left of the houses if they did. As we turned into the port of Lyttleton, the aftermath of the earthquake came into view, with the facades of some of the properties simply sprawled all over the pavement. As we turned into a side turning to turn around, there were houses with no roofs, some with no fronts but all the insides clearly visible. People were sitting out in the streets, presumably because they had no houses to go into. As we drove along another residential street properties had crosses sprayed on their doors and windows, indicating that they were not safe to live in. What is strange is that one house can be almost demolished and the one next door is still intact. As we drove through the suburbs of Chiristchurch there was sporadic evidence of the quake in the adjacent buildings, but the roads were like riding a roller coaster. Many of the cracks and deep potholes had been repaired, which is pretty good considering the quake was only just over 3 weeks ago. There was also evidence of the grey silt that had been pushed up through the ground and just left to dry out on the surface.
The next task was to find the actual location of our site, which was proving to be troublesome with just a tourist map to navigate by. After about 40 minutes and a number of back turns, we stumbled across the site, which had also suffered a fair amount of damage. The water supply was operational, butt is assumed contaminated and all water to drink has to be boiled. The site is really busy with campers hat are like us, cleaning up to return their vans. Others have just collected them and getting ready for their holiday. There are also lots of volunteers staying on the site, such as Salvation Army and Red Cross staff. We walked down the road to the nearby supermarket and almost every house we passed had lost its chimney stack. Somehow it didn’t seem right to photograph the damage. Back to the van and it’s time to start getting cleaned up ready to return the van in the morning.
There is a big memorial service in Hagley Park tomorrow, which is likely to make the traffic around Christchurch horrendous, so retuning the campervan may not be as easy as we were hoping.
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