63 and free

The list of reasons to love New Zealand is long. As we have repeatedly showed, chief amongst them are unparalleled natural beauty, a lack of crowding, wonderful friendly people, a lack of animals that eat hikers, the absence of poisonous bugs and of course, PIES!

New Zealand is located on the “ring of fire” circling the Pacific ocean. The Pacific plate is subducting under the Australian plate here. Ultra thin crust above enormous magma chambers and lots of active fault zones are both common in this geological environment. These have given rise to truly horrific events that are destined to be repeated. But hopefully not before we can detect them ahead of time.

We have described some of them here. See our posts entitled “Armageddon down under”, “Te Wairoa”, and “Art Deco and the Indomitable Kiwis”.

Unfortunately it remains near impossible to detect, and very difficult to protect against.

One cannot visit Christchurch and not be reminded of these simple facts. There are still large holes and large construction projects scattered throughout the central business district of this city.

The numbers 12:51 holds a special meaning in Christchurch:

Given the recent events in Turkey and Syria, this seems minor but to those who survived it or lost loved ones it is anything but. A visit to the Quake museum puts one’s own life into perspective. The documentaries/interviews are especially powerful.

Today, however, the city is incredibly vibrant and beautiful. It is called the “Garden City” for very good reasons: 1200+ reasons to be exact! 😊

It was Bernie-time yesterday.

We walked 14 kilometres. 🤕😵‍💫

First up was the Botanical Gardens (all photos were taken by Bernie…I didn’t have my phone, and NO we won’t talk about why). 👇

Then we wandered through the CBD.