Jan 24th

Spent the day visiting Christchurch which has had 11,000 after-shocks since the last earthquake in 2011, the last one being yesterday. Saw houses half-collapsed hanging from the hillsides, the 10 storey police station empty and awaiting demolition. The council has 1600 buildings to check, repair or demolish including the Art Gallery, an Arts Centre , the hot houses in Hagley Park that we visited together with thousands of houses [50,000 people from a population of 350,000 have left the city and it is not known if these people are awaitng the repair of their houses or whether they have left permaently]. The centre of Christchurch has become a re-start project with shops and restaurants operating out of converted metal shipping containers which may sound grim but is actually rather funky. As well as Hagley Park we visited the museum and saw some buskers as there is an annual buskers festival here - we noted there was an Ozzie who we last saw at the Edinburgh fringe 2 years ago. Last night we took Rosemary out to a well-known restaurant that has relocated to a new site as its previous site was damaged in the earthquake. It is difficult to imagine the devastation of a large earthquake until one actually see the effects of it for oneself.