NZ Holiday - Methven to Christchurch

Christchurch - the Restart

Container City - the Restart Mall

Coffee at The Curators House in the Botanic Gardens

Sad sight - the Cathedral

Green shoots at the  Container City

The Show must go on - but not quite yet - Theatre repairs underway

I suppose if they had not had the catastrophic earthquakes we would have spent more time in this lovely city. The centre is absolutely devastated yet there is a positivity about the place. In the suburb where we are staying there is no evidence of damage, the trees are in bloom and the gardens are lovely. The City Centre is definitely work in progress. There is a container city right in the centre where they have set up shops and we sat and had a coffee and browsed. The new bus station alongside was thronged with school kids and commuters at the end of the day. The damage seemed a lot worse than we had expected but there is a lot of repair work underway. It is going to take a while! The Cathedral is a sad sight. Would be good if they could repair it but the cost would be huge. The River Avon still looks the same and the botanical gardens were lovely. Was a bit concerned that we might feel we were intruding on private grief but it was not like that at all.