Life in Shaky Christchurch

CHRISTCHURCH (April 16 – June 8, 2012)

Christchurch, the Garden City. But more recently known as the city that has been devastated by several earthquakes and is currently in the process of rebuilding. 

So much has happened in the almost eight weeks we have spent there...it will be challenging to include everything but we’ll try our best to fill you in and give you a good idea of what we lived and experienced.

Our intentions for our stay in Christchurch were really to base ourselves there to find work and replenish our travel funds. It seemed to be the most likely place where both of us could find work that paid reasonably well. So during our first week there we applied for as many jobs as we could and got set up with a few temp agencies to help us find work. Thanks to my past professor, Dr. David Legg, I got a couple contacts for networking and met with one of them who works for one of the city council fitness centres.

Apart from networking and looking for work, we were able to explore the city a bit more, compared to when we were here for a couple of days a couple months ago. To be honest there wasn’t too much to explore though especially after hearing what the city used to be and look like. The city now consists of pile after pile of rubble and demolition aftermath. After over a year since the most devastating earthquake, Feb. 22, 2011, they are just beginning work of rebuilding and they have a long way to go. An interesting fact to know is that Christchurch was safe from earthquakes until recent years when the fault line moved to right underneath the city. It didn’t help that much of the city was built on marshland and the foundation is grey sand. One of our first days in Christchurch we experienced our first tremor of 3.9. During our time here, we would feel ones ranging from 3.2 to 5.2. 

A shot of the CBD, red-zoned

An example of what some residents` houses look like now

High Street, what used to be one of the main streets in the CBD

A shot of the iconic Christchurch Cathedral just before demolition

A "Gap Filler" initiative - community book exchange in an old refrigerator

Re:Start Mall; a mall that consists of loading container shops just outside the red-zoned CBD

We also spent a few days with Maria, whom we met up with again before she continued her travels to

Melbourne and Sydney. We also celebrated Adrian’s 26^th birthday by going to a container bar and another evening having some cake at the hostel. 

At Revival Bar for Adrian's 26th Birthday, a loading container that has been transformed into a bar

Birthday cake at the hostel

Being pretty confident that we would find work here, we decided to look for a flat to live in for the next few months instead of living out of hostels. After looking at a few places over a weekend, we signed for a flat just outside of the city centre. 5 Gilby Street. Once we moved in the flat consisted of 9 rooms and 12 people, which sounds like a lot but it was so great! Most rooms had their own ensuites, the kitchen was never too busy and it was fun to come home and hang out with a few people.  There was:

• Thomas – a Kiwi studying something with computers

• Simon – a Kiwi from Tauranga, a designer who recently went self-employed

• Daniel (aka Carlos) – a half Kiwi half Spanish, works in international sales

• Sam & Claire – a Kiwi couple from Christchurch; Sam works in a warehouse that supplies local supermarkets, Claire is a store manager for Rebel Sports (similar to Sport Chek)

• Gen & Hannah – a Japanese couple that work as chefs

• Alasdair – a Scotsman who has been working in New Zealand the past year or so as a quantity surveyor

• Merlin – a German who moved to Christchurch to complete an internship for his education on infomatics

• Jeremy – a Kiwi from Hawke’s Bay who has been in Christchurch for a number of years, working as a civil engineer

Our bedroom at 5 Gilby St

The common area where we have a lot of good memories with our flatmates!

After a couple weeks here, Adrian got a drainlaying job that would last for two weeks. Unfortunately it turned out to be more of a labour job rather than using his plumbing/gas fitting skills so he stuck with it but was extremely bored. On top of that, the pay wasn’t very good.

A week after Adrian started work I got a job with Antarctica New Zealand as an administrator for two weeks. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming there and it was a very enjoyable environment to work in. Not to mention pretty interesting work as the institution was responsible for all the research, logistics, etc. that takes place in Antarctica.

After I was finished with them, I moved onto a company called Downer and worked as a receptionist. Downer is an engineering/construction company that is part of the alliance which contributes to SCIRT (Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team) initiatives. It was a neat experience learning about the rebuild of Christchurch and contributing to it, even if it was in a very small capacity. Once again everyone was very friendly and welcoming and a fun social environment to work in. 

We tried to make the most of our weekends there. 1. Because at least one of us was working during the week and 2. Because we needed a change of scenery from the rubble this is Christchurch. One of the weekends we caught a rugby game (Canterbury Crusaders v Auckland Blues) with some of the flatmates. Another weekend we went out to Sumner, a seaside suburb. Sumner was an area that was hit pretty badly and there are containers holding up the hills (similar to in the city, containers holding up buildings). But if you can see past, it’s a pretty cute suburb that holds the beauty of the beach and ocean and also some fun shops and cafes to experience. On a random Wednesday, a few of us went out to Lyttleton, the port of Christchurch. We went to a funky bar called Wunderbar for a drink and later took Dyers Pass Road(?) to the top of Port Hills(?) and got an amazing evening view of the city!

The Crusader, part of pre-game pump up

A try! One of many that night with a final score of 56-10

Jeremy, Daniel/Carlos, Merlin, Alasdair. not the best pic but at least you can put faces to names

Sumner

Throwing the football around at Taylor's Mistake, Sumner - a popular spot for surfing

Night view of the city

The work situation didn’t go as well as we had hoped. Adrian ran into a few problems/frustrations – the majority of companies wanted him to be NZ certified, some companies wanted him to have his own transport and/or tools, and the rebuild from the earthquakes just wasn’t at the stage yet where they needed plumbers and gas fitters. We eventually came to the realization that the only jobs he could get were mind-numbing labour jobs that paid just above minimum wage – barely enough to live let alone save for traveling and send money home for his house payments.  So after accepting defeat, we decided it would be best to head over to Australia (Melbourne) for more and better opportunities. The increased frequency of tremors/earthquakes also helped with this decision.

Our last weekend in Christchurch, also the long weekend for the Queen’s Birthday, will probably be the most memorable weekend of our time there. Friday evening we caught another Super Rugby 15 game, Crusaders v Highlanders. There is a big rivalry between the two teams similar to that of Calgary and Edmonton. So the day of the game, our one flatmate Claire waited in line to get tickets for us. Crusaders smashed the Highlanders but it was a fun atmosphere with friendly trash talking and the like. Saturday we went out to Akaroa, a French themed township out on the Banks Peninsula. Claire and I wandered around looking in shops while the guys went walking on the pier and grabbed a pint. Sunday was just a lazy day. We picked up Jeremy from the airport, met Claire for lunch in the mall where she works and got a bit of a tour of the city from Sam. Monday Sam took us out to Hanmer Springs which I would compare to Radium because of the hot pools/springs and landscape. We actually didn’t go in the springs but instead wandered around, went for lunch and played a game of mini golf. In the evening a bunch of us went out to Winnebago’s, a gourmet pizza joint, for our “last supper” together as a household.

Akaroa

Akaroa with Claire, Nick (Sam's friend), Sam and Adrian

A view of Hanmer Springs down below

Would have been a good shot if the sun wasn't so bright or if I had brought my sunnies

"Tea" at Winnebago's

Tuesday just consisted of packing for our flight the next morning (6:15am, *ugh*) and getting the chance to watch Claire play in her netball game – a new sport for us. According to Jeremy, it was a sport invented for women because they couldn’t handle the rough sport of basketball. *pff*, yeah right!

Wednesday morning we were up to 3am and out of the house by 3:30 to catch our flight. Sam was nice enough to drive us to the airport and hang out with us for a bit before heading to work. Apart from having to ditch our bag of flat necessities and such because it was going to cost us $400 ($25/kilo), checking in and everything went nice and smooth. It wasn’t until just before our boarding that things started to take a turn. As we were warned by the weather websites, it started to snow. Just light as first but enough to delay the flight a bit. After half an hour or so, it became worse with massive flakes coming down. Our flight was delayed for a number of hours until it was finally canceled around noon. Apparently it only snows once or twice a year in Christchurch so lucky us, we got to experience that! So much for not seeing snow for the year and a half we are planning to be gone for! Luckily we were able to rebook our flight for Friday evening with no cost difference.

It starts...

Waiting for the bus after rebooking our flight. The bus driver was nice enough to take us back into the city even though he was advised to stop driving and bring the bus back to the depot. Apparently the whole city shuts down when it snows here.

On the bus ride back to the city

The two days passed quickly and before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to our flatmates for the second time, had our third bag checked in for $42 instead of $400, and were boarding the plane.

Second time is a charm in this case and we arrived safe and sound in Melbourne on Friday, June 8. Since Friday we have been busy applying for jobs, getting set up with temp agencies and spending a bit of time getting to know the city. It’s taken us a bit to go from Kiwi time to the Aussie lifestyle but we’re getting there! We plan to work and live here for 6 months or so before we continue our traveling and hope to update the blog on a monthly basis so stay tuned for more of our adventures!