Sand Storm

We had such a mix of weather today. First thing this morning the sky was so blue and with on a very short time, it turned black and we were hit by a storm with hail, very strong winds and heavy rain. With in half-hour all was blue again.

I asked John if we could go out somewhere and he said later on in the afternoon we could go to Sumner. It is a is a coastal seaside suburb of Christchurch and was surveyed and named in 1849 in honour of John Bird Sumner, the then newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and president of the Canterbury Association. Originally a separate borough, it was amalgamated with the city of Christchurch as communications improved and the economies of scale made small town boroughs uneconomic to operate.

On 22 February 2011, Sumner was hit by the Christchurch earthquake, which destroyed or made uninhabitable a large number of the local houses and commercial buildings. On 13 June the same year, Sumner was hit by another earthquake of almost the same magnitude as the February event. These two earthquakes caused many of Sumner's iconic cliffs to collapse, and many areas to be cordoned off with both traditional fences and, more interestingly, shipping containers. Taken From and for more Info on Sumner.

We were taking a walk along the beach at Sumner so I could get a shot of the shipping container art when very strong winds hit and caused a sandstorm... The beach was still packed with people enjoying the beautiful warm day and when this sand storm hit I have never seen so many people pack up and leave. It was really bad and you couldn't face into the sand storm, so just turned around and went back to the car. I never got my shots of the shipping containers!

I took a number of interesting shot.. one of a little girls bucket flying away and she managed to get it and stood with her arm open wide and said.. "Mum I can fly" and she just about took off into the air! I thought this one was shot was interesting as you can see people leaving the beach in a hurry. Not long after this shot.. that dark cloud had gone and all the sky was blue again!