Recharging in Christchurch

After putting 3000 kms on Didier's car and our ongoing daily activites, we decided we needed some down time so we spent about five days at his house in Christchurch (two of those we didn't even leave the place!).

When I left on this adventure one of the things I wanted to do was take cooking lessons. Margaret, Didier's Mom, kindly gave me my first lesson! She tought me to make the New Zealand national dessert: Pavlova. Pavlova was created in New Zealand (not eastern Europe as I originally thought) in honour of the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in the 1920's during one of her tours. The cake was straight forward but I was very nervous of over whipping the egg whites, which would result in a flat and unrisen cake. Under careful guidance of Margaret,

I was successul!

As well as a visit for dinner at Didier's parents house, we met up with Andrew, Sarah and their little guy Ed at their home in Lyttleton for a yummy lamb dinner! They live in a 100 year old home over looking the harbour with spectacular views (I can't believe we didn't take a photo...)

We spent one day walking around downtown Christchurch. As mentioned in a previous post, Christchurch was hit with two major eartquakes in September 4th 2010 (7.1 magnitude) and Februrary 22 2011 (6.3 magnitude). Although the latter was a lower magnitude than the first, its epicenter was a lot closer to the city. This famous PHOTO found on the internet shows the cloud of debris coming from the city core moments after the quake.

The city suffered serious damages and many new and historical buildings were so damaged that they had to be demolished. One of the most notable buildings is the Anglican Cathedral.

Walking through the city is like walking through a massive construction site: cranes, concrete trucks, site office trailers, construction workers and safety fencing at almost every intersection.

There are cool little spots that have popped up throughout the city since the earthquake like the Re:Start mall.

By the way, Christchurch has some seriously good cafe lunches!

We enjoyed a walk back to Didier's through the Christchurch botanical gardens and Hagley Park.

We did manage to find the closest rock climbing crag to Didier's house: Albert Terrace, which was a short 20 minute walk and had some great short and low grade sport climbs. The granite was a bit polished but it was a lot of fun to be in our harnesses again.

Finally, on our last day in Christchurch, we picked up our rental car: Hyundai Getz. The smallest car we have ever seen and everything is backwards. It took a bit of time but we are now happy to report that we can drive on the left side of the road. All we have to do is chant "left, left, left, left" as we put the car into first gear as a reminder (and yes, it's a manual).