Botanic gardens, Christchurch

This photo pretty much sums up the day - interesting sights, but very damp.

We walked into the city centre this morning, passing through the Remembrance Arch, and via a coffee shop. We reached Cathedral Square, where we were able to see the damage to the cathedral. This was badly damaged by the earthquake, shored up, and nothing has been done to it since, whilst it was the subject of many arguments - apparently the Anglican church authorities wanted to demolish it and rebuild from scratch, the people of the city wanted it to be restored. The people have prevailed. But now the funding has to be found.

We then caught the "hop on, hop off" sight seeing tram, described by its conductor today as "the mobile umbrella", and stayed on it for a full circuit, listening to the commentary provided by the driver, whilst making up our minds what we would do. On the second circuit, we got off at the Botanic Gardens stop, and as the weather seemed to have improved, decided to have a walk in the gardens. We were caught by a very sharp shower whilst in the New Zealand Garden section, and after taking this photo, we retreated into the conservatory for a while.

We then walked back to another tram stop, and took advantage of the "mobile umbrella" to avoid a hail shower. We took another circuit and a half - different driver, different commentary, and then decided to walk back to our B&B. Some sharp showers, and a biting wind made this walk much less pleasant.

All in all, an interesting day with much information about the earthquake and its effects on the city - 70% of the buildings in the city were so badly damaged they had to be demolished, including many heritage buildings. One of the commentators spoke about the effect of losing so many of his memories, and the importance to him that in some cases, particularly memorable features had been retained, even when the bulk of the building had to be demolished and rebuilt.