Christchurch Earthquake devastation - 3 yrs on

The travel saga continued with my being bumped off the flight to Christchurch from Auckland because of overbooking by the Bruce Springsteen concert goers. So I sat and waited for the next available plane only to hear my name over the tannoy calling me to join the earlier/booked flight as someone hadn't turned up!.

The wind was howling, the rain lashing down, mountains near Nelson were covered in snow and the rest of the south island hid under cloud as we approached Christchurch yawing and bouncing through the whiteness. But we landed safely and I was met by pcc who took me under her wing until my sister-in-law and rainie flew in later in the day from the concert and a day filming on an island.

Pcc drove me around the city in the pouring rain and showed me the devastation - huge numbers of houses have disappeared leaving vacant grassed plots with a lonely letter box standing by the entrance, the cathedral is shored up awaiting a decision on what to do with it, huge office blocks like the one above awaited demolition, others had disappeared and been replaced by smaller buildings with huge underpinnings against damage by future earthquakes, houses teetered on the edge of hillsides that had slipped several hundred feet and stories of liquefaction bubbling up through the cracks and then solidifying were pretty horrifying too. There was an area where shipping containers had been placed to provide shops with an outlet as hundreds of shops stood empty elsewhere as they were too damaged or in an area surrounded by damage so no shoppers could reach them.

My brother came to fetch us all and we drove through the filthy weather towards Timaru where we were greeted by a gorgeous sunset and dry ground as they had been missed by the storm!

My luggage has still not arrived and I am invited out to coffee tomorrow morning - will have to carry a nosegay or a bunch of roses of something to masque any untoward odours...