Tag Archives: #NZpicoftheday

The $1,000,000 House

The $1,000,000 House by Steph Jennings
The $1,000,000 House, a photo by Steph Jennings on Flickr.

For Sale, Historic Earthquake Site, River View, Portaloos coming. $1,000,000.

Taken cycling through Avonside one of the worst effected areas in the February 22nd quake, today’s picture isn’t about the image it’s about the message.

Today (June 13th) Christchurch was rocked by another series of large aftershocks, thankfully this time only a few were injured and there were no fatalities, but there has been yet more extensive damage to the infrastructure.

Houses fallen, businesses closed and roads, sewers, power lines and water mains “munted” – yet more uncertainty and testing times for the residents but this image shows that after the worst of experiences you can still see the bright side and maintain a sense of humour.

Stay strong Christchurch, or Kia Kaha as the locals would say, keep your heads up and you’ll come through this again!

Purple Peak – Akaroa

Purple Peak - Akaroa by Steph Jennings
Purple Peak – Akaroa, a photo by Steph Jennings on Flickr.

The last day of the Banks Peninsula Tramp after heading through the Hinewai reserve we reached purple peak. The highest point of this days walking before we start heading down the other side of the hill and into Akaroa. The bay in the distance is Otanerito where we started the days walking.

Tranzalpine, Christchurh to Greymouth

The Transalpine Trip is a 233.8 km train journey from Christchurch on the east coast to Greymouth on the west coast on New Zealand passing through some of the most amazing scenery I’ve ever encountered.

Travelling first across the Canterbury plains then into the Southern Alps, passing via Arthur’s Pass and in several places crossing the waimakariri river, there are 19 tunnels, the longest one taking 20 minutes to pass through and 4 viaducts, the highest being the Staircase standing at 73 metres.

The journey took 4.5hours one way but with a stunning open air carriage for you to take pictures from there was no way you could tire of the scenery.

We travelled from Christchurch to Greymouth and back again in one day with only an hours stop on the west coast, It was long day with a round trip of 467.6km but worth every minute!

The only thing that could have made it any more scenic would have been if these mountains we snow capped.

www.tranzscenic.co.nz/services/tranzalpine.aspx

The first of the seals

The first of the seals by Steph Jennings
The first of the seals, a photo by Steph Jennings on Flickr.

On the Banks Peninsula tramp as we were heading down from the headland into Stoney Bay we spotted a seal swimming in the ocean, moving down onto the beach to see if we could get a closer look we encountered the first of many many seals we’d stumble across on the Canterbury coast.

The remnants of a quake

Yesterday after I posted my #NZpicoftheday Dan Slee sent me a message:

Which actually should have been a challenge as New Zealand is land of beautiful scenery, but mainly comprising of the mountains and the sea, so not a lot of red…. until recently.

Post quake Christchurch is awash with red, but this is no good thing. If you’ve seen todays #NZpicoftheday you’ll know why but it meant my choice of image was already there for the taking.

I’ve been trying to avoid posting “the damage” pictures as much as possible, it felt really voyeuristic walking around the remains of people lives and snapping away. I was very aware that as a tourist I would escape the ruin but for the people who lived there, there can be no escape, this is now their new reality.  In fact taking pictures of the quake damage was one thing I didn’t do for the first 2 weeks we were there. It wasn’t until until I met “locals” with cameras, discussing where they were when the quake hit I felt confident enough to take my camera out it, seeing them made me feel less intrusive about walking around taking pictures but I still shyed away from shooting peoples homes.

Just like seeing those locals in Christchurch who changed my mind about taking the photos, Today’s picture and subsequent conversation with someone who still believed the earthquake damage was isolated to the city centre has made me rethink about posting images of the damage.

The CBD (city centre) is still cordoned off and inaccessible with buildings visibly leaning awaiting deconstruction, rubble is piled everywhere broken glass and detritus still littering every corner.

Every street in every suburb in the east of the city has damage, Houses, roads, businesses, felled trees, burst water mains munted sewerage pipes, collapsed river banks, subsidence and liquifaction is wide spread, and as you head further out into the port hills, to Sumner and Redcliffs, closer to Lyttleton and the epicentre you have to contend with all this and the added devastation rock falls and land slides.

As one New Zealander pointed out to me, this is history as it happens and someone has to record it before it all changes.

300km of sewerage pipes are in need of repairing or replacing, as a result waste is being pumped into the rivers and polluting the sea.

Sumner & Redcliffs RSA building, destroyed in a rock slide during the Feb quake, a boulder the size of my living room crashed through the rear of it.

This could be a photograph of any street corner in the city centre.

The CBD is still cordoned off, navigating the city centre is nightmare when every every second street is inaccessible and the cordons move based on risk analysis, work being undertaken and the constant threat of aftershocks.

Another street, another dead end.

3 months after the quake and glass still litters the streets, the human rescue and recovery tasks taking priority over clean up operations,

Every street is effected, this is Sumner, every household is in upheaval but from a distance it looks like nothing’s wrong, until you look closer and spot the remains of where a house once stood.

Even the footpaths in places are now impassable

When cracks appear in the road wider then your foot where do you start fixing them? – The answer – they didn’t they started with the ones big enough for someone to stand in

Whole sections of the road just shifted, this is right on the coast near Spencer Park easily and hour away from the CBD

The raw power of a quake, twisted and mangled foot bridge across the river Avon, thankfully this was damaged in the September quake which hit in the early hours of the morning so no one was on it.

Whole sections of ground have dropped by more than a metre – I wish I could say this was unique to the river banks but this subsidence is evident across the city and suburbs…

….Damage is everywhere,