Our trip down to the South Island with the family was eventful to say the least. I'll start with natural disasters.
Christchurch, NZ. Beautiful city. Very lovely old brick architecture. Makes for a nice looking city, but falls down during earthquakes as evidenced by this damage from the September 2010 earthquake.
We arrived in Christchurch on the evening of Christmas Day. We found our rental townhouse (after we tried to break into a different one, but that's another story) and settled in for the night. Most of us were awoken by a weird rumbling sensation around 2:00a.m. (Lindsay and Tim basically slept through the following few paragraphs).
Mark rolled over and whispered, "Aftershock!" To which I replied, "No, it wasn't." He said, "Yes, it was! What else could it have been?" I said, "It was just a, a, um....." Then the whole house shook again. Earthquake.
Mom apparently sat straight up in bed and panicked immediately. Andrew thought Dan was having a seizure. He wasn't. All was fine and we sort of slept through the rest of the night with a few more rumblings.
The next morning, we went to the central part of the city to look around. We were at the City Arts Centre chatting with the locals about earthquakes when the big one hit. It was weird. Scary, but short. It was a 4.9 on the richter scale. A number of the older building began crumbling again and the police began shutting down the area. Smaller aftershocks followed and eventually the whole city centre was taped off (due to the amount of older unstable buildings in the area).
Tim and Mark after the big one.
Me after a number of aftershocks. Less than impressed.
We are glad to have experienced just enough to make a good story, but not more. Andrew said it was better than anything we had paid for up to that point! Our thoughts go out to all the city centre businesses in Christchurch. They had just recovered from the September earthquake and were now shut down again. Very unfortunate and a rough time for the businesses and residents. Hopefully, that was the last of the quakes.
Earthquakes aside, Christchurch was a very enjoyable stop. I recommend going next time you are in the Southern hemisphere.
My first comment didn't work.
ReplyDeleteOK.
I'm so glad you guys survived the earthquake! It is the strangest feeling ever- I couldn't imagine being outside. I especially love how the earthquake was so strong in knocked Tim's glasses sideways (intentional?)
Anyways. Glad to see you had an awesome adventure with your family. I'm sure they enjoyed their time out there with you guys. I wish we could come visit- stupid jobs.
Love you lots and talk to you soon! (Skype!?)