Before leaving Christchurch this morning, I drove around a bit looking for a grocery store, winding my way through the ravaged outskirts of the city centre.
Took a few photos, which I will include here. Some pics show the destruction but there are 2 sets with slightly different takes on the subject. One set shows a citizen protest set to "The 12 Days of Christmas" which lambastes some of the issues that people are outraged about, in particular the excruciatingly slow rebuilding and a potential stadium boondoggle in the making. The other set shows a memorial to the victims of the quake, comprised of 185 white chairs in an open lot.
Despite my somewhat macabre desire to stick around and absorb more of the tragedy, logic prevailed and I got quickly got my ass out of there and headed up the coast on Highway 1 toward Kaikoura. Unlike Hwy 1 in California, much of NZ 1 parallels the ocean but does not run right alongside it... until you get to Kaikoura. A quiet little beach town that some locals think has gotten too touristy, it sits on a natural bay with a wide, curved, sweeping beach. Sure, the "downtown" abounds in trinket shops and restaurants but what beach town doesn't? I found it to be quaint and not really overdone.
After a lovely lunch near the water's edge, I found the need to use the public toilets before heading back on the road. Once again, I found a sparkling clean, modern facility which seems to be the norm for this country. I did have a moment though, when I thought perhaps all was lost. It happened when I was seated in that most vulnerable of positions, with my pants around my ankles. At that precise instant, a loud and persistent siren went off (at 2:58 PM) and continued to howl for over 5 minutes. At first, I assumed it was a fire siren. Then, I had a mental image of some poor bastard in Indonesia or Japan, who perhaps heard a similar siren and was then immediately swept away to his doom (still on the throne) by a massive tsunami.
Ha ha ha, right? I've got some kind of dark and twisted mind, dontcha think?
Or not.
I later found out that there had been an earthquake jolt in the Marlborough Sounds
about 2 hours to the north and that wailing siren had indeed been a tsunami warning. Maybe they were testing it and all the locals were in on the deal, I dunno.
What I do know (and what is most disturbing in retrospect) is that no one in the town did anything. Nobody closed up shop and ran for their cars. No one came out to the beach to hustle people away from the water's edge. Nobody did nuthin'.
If there WAS a tsunami bearing down, we were all gonna sleep with the fishes.
In my ignorant bliss, I spent a couple hours of chillin' at the beach and then got back on the road. It was late afternoon by then and I decided not to push all the way to Nelson, as originally planned. If I've learned anything on this trip, it's that the time estimates on the road maps and on Google Maps are not to be trusted. Not only do they NOT take into account the stop-start-stop-start progress of the itinerant photographer but they must use only one constant vehicle speed for their computations. The true speeds range from 5 mph to 75 mph and everywhere in between.
To be safe, I targeted the town of Blenheim for my overnight stay and with a realistic appraisal of the time, managed to arrive 8 PM, just as estimated.
I could see from out of my motel room window that a luscious sunset was happening off the the west but I was not going to chase it.
I was not getting back in that car again today for anything.
As for the drive itself, it very much reminded me of California.
One section was right out of Sonoma cow country, while another was a doppleganger for the Pacific Coast between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.
As I approached Blenheim and the Marlborough Country (yes, the REAL Marlborough Country) it looked so much like the Napa and Sonoma wine regions, it was startling.
And as always, there are rivers. I can't say how many times I drove across a bridge, looked to my left and saw a dramatic vista of a river rushing to the sea with mountains rising up in the distance. I usually would exclaim "Holy shit!" and doggedly drive on before telling myself, "You gotta go back!". I'd then swing the car around, park at the end of the bridge and walk out into the middle, with cars whizzing past just a few feet away. There's not much of a shoulder on those bridges, so sometimes it felt rather precarious. I knew I was done for the day when, while out in the middle of the last bridge, I found myself struggling to stay on my feet as those legendary gale force winds came roaring thru this particular river valley as the sun was setting.
I'm not exaggerating when I say there was a real possibility that I could have been blown over by the wind. With this realization, I gave up the mission and ran like hell to the car in a low, crouched position. Did I really need yet ANOTHER shot of a river? Maybe not. But I know I'm not quite finished with them yet.
Anyway, for the next 2 days, in order to cap off my visit to the South Island, I hope to explore hiking trails and beaches in and around Nelson, Motueka and Abel Tasman National Park. I do intend to don a swim suit and get into the surf.
You better hope I don't take any selfies of THAT.
After this weekend, I will cross over the Cook Strait by ferry to arrive in the capital city, Wellington. I will take 2 days to explore what I'm told is the most culturally rich city in the nation before my trip grudgingly concludes But let's not get ahead of myself.
For now, here are some photos from today.
Took a few photos, which I will include here. Some pics show the destruction but there are 2 sets with slightly different takes on the subject. One set shows a citizen protest set to "The 12 Days of Christmas" which lambastes some of the issues that people are outraged about, in particular the excruciatingly slow rebuilding and a potential stadium boondoggle in the making. The other set shows a memorial to the victims of the quake, comprised of 185 white chairs in an open lot.
Despite my somewhat macabre desire to stick around and absorb more of the tragedy, logic prevailed and I got quickly got my ass out of there and headed up the coast on Highway 1 toward Kaikoura. Unlike Hwy 1 in California, much of NZ 1 parallels the ocean but does not run right alongside it... until you get to Kaikoura. A quiet little beach town that some locals think has gotten too touristy, it sits on a natural bay with a wide, curved, sweeping beach. Sure, the "downtown" abounds in trinket shops and restaurants but what beach town doesn't? I found it to be quaint and not really overdone.
After a lovely lunch near the water's edge, I found the need to use the public toilets before heading back on the road. Once again, I found a sparkling clean, modern facility which seems to be the norm for this country. I did have a moment though, when I thought perhaps all was lost. It happened when I was seated in that most vulnerable of positions, with my pants around my ankles. At that precise instant, a loud and persistent siren went off (at 2:58 PM) and continued to howl for over 5 minutes. At first, I assumed it was a fire siren. Then, I had a mental image of some poor bastard in Indonesia or Japan, who perhaps heard a similar siren and was then immediately swept away to his doom (still on the throne) by a massive tsunami.
Ha ha ha, right? I've got some kind of dark and twisted mind, dontcha think?
Or not.
I later found out that there had been an earthquake jolt in the Marlborough Sounds
about 2 hours to the north and that wailing siren had indeed been a tsunami warning. Maybe they were testing it and all the locals were in on the deal, I dunno.
What I do know (and what is most disturbing in retrospect) is that no one in the town did anything. Nobody closed up shop and ran for their cars. No one came out to the beach to hustle people away from the water's edge. Nobody did nuthin'.
If there WAS a tsunami bearing down, we were all gonna sleep with the fishes.
In my ignorant bliss, I spent a couple hours of chillin' at the beach and then got back on the road. It was late afternoon by then and I decided not to push all the way to Nelson, as originally planned. If I've learned anything on this trip, it's that the time estimates on the road maps and on Google Maps are not to be trusted. Not only do they NOT take into account the stop-start-stop-start progress of the itinerant photographer but they must use only one constant vehicle speed for their computations. The true speeds range from 5 mph to 75 mph and everywhere in between.
To be safe, I targeted the town of Blenheim for my overnight stay and with a realistic appraisal of the time, managed to arrive 8 PM, just as estimated.
I could see from out of my motel room window that a luscious sunset was happening off the the west but I was not going to chase it.
I was not getting back in that car again today for anything.
As for the drive itself, it very much reminded me of California.
One section was right out of Sonoma cow country, while another was a doppleganger for the Pacific Coast between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.
As I approached Blenheim and the Marlborough Country (yes, the REAL Marlborough Country) it looked so much like the Napa and Sonoma wine regions, it was startling.
And as always, there are rivers. I can't say how many times I drove across a bridge, looked to my left and saw a dramatic vista of a river rushing to the sea with mountains rising up in the distance. I usually would exclaim "Holy shit!" and doggedly drive on before telling myself, "You gotta go back!". I'd then swing the car around, park at the end of the bridge and walk out into the middle, with cars whizzing past just a few feet away. There's not much of a shoulder on those bridges, so sometimes it felt rather precarious. I knew I was done for the day when, while out in the middle of the last bridge, I found myself struggling to stay on my feet as those legendary gale force winds came roaring thru this particular river valley as the sun was setting.
I'm not exaggerating when I say there was a real possibility that I could have been blown over by the wind. With this realization, I gave up the mission and ran like hell to the car in a low, crouched position. Did I really need yet ANOTHER shot of a river? Maybe not. But I know I'm not quite finished with them yet.
Anyway, for the next 2 days, in order to cap off my visit to the South Island, I hope to explore hiking trails and beaches in and around Nelson, Motueka and Abel Tasman National Park. I do intend to don a swim suit and get into the surf.
You better hope I don't take any selfies of THAT.
After this weekend, I will cross over the Cook Strait by ferry to arrive in the capital city, Wellington. I will take 2 days to explore what I'm told is the most culturally rich city in the nation before my trip grudgingly concludes But let's not get ahead of myself.
For now, here are some photos from today.
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