We rose late again, then spent some time on the internet before catching the bus into the city centre for some sightseeing. Not that there are all that many sights to see - you still can't get near Cathedral Square. Huge parts of the centre of the city are still fenced off, though Xmas decorations are starting to go up.
This is Remembrance Bridge. You can see it has been declared unsafe and is fenced off.
As our time was short, we took a tour (in an old London Routemaster) which conducted us round various parts of the city and the suburbs. Apparently, there are 1400 buildings to be demolished in the city centre, and they all have to be demolished carefully from the top down. The bus driver told us it had now been decided to re-build the cathedral, but perhaps not on such a grand scale. Many buildings will be re-built, though there are still arguments about how high to build in the future. We drove round the Arts Centre, which used to be part of the University before it became an Arts Centre. It will need considerable work.
We learned something of the history of the area. The land around was bought from the Maori in 1848 and quite a bit of it was originally swamp, which has contributed to the difficulties caused by the earthquake. John Deans built Deans Cottage soon after that; it is the oldest surviving building in the area. Even it needed a bit of propping up after the earthquake.
In 1854, having married, he started building Riccarton House from locally milled timber, though he died before it was finished. His wife and son moved into the house in 1856.
It was damaged in the earthquake, and is currently being repaired, so it isn't possible to visit. The cafe is still operating, but in a marquee in the garden - you can see a bit of it in the far right of the picture. At least it means some of the people employed there still have jobs. Apparently, 58,000 people used to be employed in the city centre, and though some offices have been able to move to the suburbs, many of the bar, hotel and restaurant staff are still without work, not to mention a lot of the shop staff.
We made our way up the Port Hills, to an old building called the Sign of the Takahe, conceived as a rest stop on the way up the Summit Road. The old building has been closed since it has been damaged, but it can be repaired. You can't see it from the side I photographed, but this building is fenced off and nobody is allowed to enter.
The views from the summit are superb, right down to the sea.
As we drove up and then down the hill, were able to see some of the earthquake damage. Most houses look fine, but many have roofs damaged or chimneys missing or walls propped up. Some are in a bad state. This one is falling sideways into the river. You can see how much it is leaning to the left - it isn't me taking a squint photo.
We drove out to the seaside resort of Sumner. Here, parts of the cliff have collapsed, taking houses with it. You may be able to see some houses hanging over the top of the cliff.
Old shipping containers have been stacked 2 deep along the foot of the cliffs to contain landslides. This is not a good picture - taken from the upstairs window of a moving bus - but it shows the top of one of the containers on the top row, and the shattered houses hanging over the cliff edge.
People still retain their sense of humour though. This was Shag Rock, but most of it fell down in the earthquake; local residents have re-named it Shag Pile!
We saw a lot of the damage as we drove around. One type of damage that is hardest to spot is the liquefaction; water and fine grained sand rose to the surface and foundations descended. You can see some areas where sand has risen through the grass, and there are some sinkholes as well. In some cases, not only have the houses to be demolished, but nothing else can be built on that land, either because it is unstable through liquefaction, or because it is threatened by landslides.
Once the tour was over, we took a quick trip round the museum. This has some interesting dioramas of Maori life and a lot of early Maori artefacts, but none photographable. I liked this depiction of an early settler cabin though.
I couldn't photograph the inside because of the reflections in the glass in the doorway, but there is some wonderful Victorian furniture inside.
We only had 90 minutes there, so we could not do more than glance at a lot of the things. But I did manage to spend some time in the Antarctic exhibition. This had a lot of memorabilia from the Shackleton expedition of 1914, like this wonderful motorised sledge, which never worked properly.
You can contrast that with the Snowcat from Vivian Fuchs expedition in 1957/8.
The clothes from the Shackleton expedition make quite a contrast with those of today too!
When they closed the Museum, we went and waited for a bus back to our hotel. We are both exhausted, but we have to be up and packed and out of our room fairly early, and off to pick up a hire car.
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